You Create the Space, and the Universe Fills It

A few years ago, I disappeared into the lush, fertile jungles of Costa Rica for two weeks to learn how to become a yoga instructor. It's the kind of jungle that if you look away for 5 minutes, the plants have grown and weaved their way across the road. I love it when you can see nature taking back civilization, a reminder of the impermanence of our time here.

Yoga had been really helpful for me during many troubling parts of my life, and I wanted to learn more about it so that I could give back, honor the practice and learn about it's ancient culture. You could say I'm crazy about yoga, I love it so much. So I did yoga every day for a year, and my reward was Costa Rica, a solo adventure where I would meet a bunch of strangers, and learn as much as I could.

Before heading to meet the howler monkeys (SO LOUD) and sloths, I had to buy a bunch of books, one of them was called "Yoga Anatomy" by Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews. It looked like your basic ho-hum textbook, lots of diagrams of the body, muscle groups, bone structures, and instructions for yoga poses, as well as the anatomy of the body. As one that never really studies anatomy (I'm more of a humanities kind of girl), I was excited.

"Ok, cool".  I thought, and started thumbing through it to do some prep reading to be as prepared as possible (I'm a good student when I'm learning things I enjoy, and a terrible student when I don't like the subject or can't see real-world application for the subject. This is probably why I became a workaholic, I put work first because I got the positive reinforcement, the accolades, like a rat pushing the lever for the treat, but I digress). 

I got to page 6 and had on of the great epiphanies of my life. PAGE 6, there are 273 pages in this unassuming book.

Bear with me as I post the quote, it has some technical jargon:

"Volume and pressure are inversely related; when volume increases, pressure decreases, and when volume decreases, pressure increases. Because air always flows toward areas of lower pressure, increasing the volume inside the thoracic cavity will decrease pressure and cause air to flow into it. This is an inhalation.
​
It is important to note that in spite of how it feels when you inhale, you do not actually pull air into the body. On the contrary, air is pushed into the body by the atmospheric pressure (14.7 pounds per square inch, or 1.03 kg/cm2) that always surrounds you. This means that the actual force that gets air into the lungs is outside of the body. The energy expended in breathing produces a shape change that lowers the pressure in the chest cavity and permits the air to be pushed into the body by the weight of the planet’s atmosphere. In other words, you create the space, and the universe fills it."

You create the space, and the Universe fills it.

What a concept. This constant pressure  of 14.7 pounds per square inch that we are unaware of. Maybe this is part of the reason that we slowly get smaller as we get older. That and gravity, obviously.

But, it is really the combination of real world application paired with the analogy, the idea that when you create the space, the Universe (or God) fills it. I was shell shocked. All those millions of breaths I'd taken, I didn't know the Universe was helping me with each one. What space could I create? And what would the Universe fill it with? What if we all created space? How would we fill it as a community?

So, at the tender age of 39, I got my first tattoo, on my ribs as a daily (assuming I change out of my pajamas) reminder of all that life can be if I just create the space. And breathe.

​ It's always there, waiting to provide. ​