I am Oxygen...
a breathing (hi)story to hold space for ecosystemic awareness, belonging & accountability
I am oxygen.
The third most abundant element in the universe.
I was born in the helium nuclear fusion reactions that make stars shine. When my star exploded, I became interstellar element, space cloud of gas and dust.
I am oxygen.
Light of stars traveling through your bronchial tubes, flowing through your blood, running through your heart. 20’000 times a day, you pull me into nurturing your animal body.
Interstellar atom shapeshifted into metabolism, into human, into you.
Inhale ancient universal energy, exhale capitalist rush.
I was abundant in space, yet scarce on Earth.
Life! made me abundant here.
Once photosynthetic single-celled organisms evolved on primordial oceans, I became part of the Earth’s atmosphere. I’ve been nutrition and toxicity, care and disaster. In my invisibility, I’ve shaped the evolution of life on this planet.
You think breathing simple, automatized, machine mechanics… but I’m your aliveness! I weave into you many organisms, many ecosystems.
I fuel your endosymbiotic mitochondria, energizing your cells as they keep you alive. But before I came to expand your lungs, to drum your heart, I was many other life forms, I was many other lands.
I am a gateway into your complex, biodiverse, interconnected nature.
I am your guide into ecosystemic awareness.
Inhale interbeing, exhale disconnection.
Let me tell you of my Earth journey before meeting your hemoglobin.
Before Life knew how to survive on land, she floated in the primordial ocean. Until a creative collaboration unlocked terrestrialization. Ancestral fungi and algae interlaced and the first mychorriza emerged from the waters: the algae knew how to turn sun into sugar, the fungi new how to turn harsh primeval soils into nutrition. As they lived in symbiosis, I became part of the life cycle on land.
As Life bloomed there, so did Death. The soil was nurtured by composted bodies and became more and more fertile. More and more CO2 was pulled from the atmosphere by the newly evolved plants and metabolized into water, and more of me... Atmospheric oxygen increased and new rhythms were added to my life: water cycle, ocean, soil, breath, photosynthesis, excretion…
I became Earth’s - Life’s - oxygenation.
Inhale symbiosis, exhale war.
After passing through primordial bodies, I joined hydrogen and we were traveling as rainwater through Amazonian soils, when a gigantic storm started in the Sahara. The winds in the desert were so strong that my fellow oxygen atoms in space could see the great amount of dust rising in Africa. Ever raging, the wind carried 27 million tons of mineral-enriched sand across the seas, to let it fall in the Amazon rain forest.
She, who teems with life, who cradles unimaginable biodiversity, home to indigenous human caregivers for millions of years, she, has relatively poor soils.
The storm comes to the rescue, bringing every year the fertilizing sands of the Sahara who nourish the ecosystem.
Inhale co-creation, exhale colonization.
Once the dust settled and replenished the soil, the trees thrived in a frenzy of photosynthesis, carbon sinking and growth. I, who had been flowing through the capillaries of a 70 meter-tall Angelim vermelho, was transpired. Through leaves and stomata, I transformed from tree metabolism, to cloud river: floating above the lush canopy.
As life is movement and change, this cloud river was also enraptured by winds that carried us across the continent until we ran into a colossal wall - more than 8 thousand km long and 6 kilometers high. When we reached the Andes our clouds condensed and we rained down once more.
As we rained and flowed down the slopes of the ancient mountain chain, we eroded and dissolved some of their millenary sediment and soil, carrying them with us into chthonic waters and river systems. I slid into the freshwater of the Amazon river with a lot of the silica brought from the mountains.
Across the continent once more, in the other direction this time, we end up flooding the Atlantic ocean with rare and precious nutrients and minerals.
Inhale fluidity, exhale conformity.
I was many creatures within the ocean, I was filtered and polluted and re-filtered, until I found myself pulled in by microscopic Diatom algae who were photosynthesizing. I recognized the silica from the Andes in their beautifully intricate geometric encasings. There were millions and millions of diatoms, fully blooming, beautifully adorned, floating while sinking down carbon from the atmosphere, oceanic keepers of climate stability... and once I was photometabolized as water, I was again released as oxygen.
30% of the planet’s oxygen is released into the atmosphere by these microalgae. This does not happen everywhere, but the Earth’s turbulent movements, her rotations, her atmospheric spiralings, ensure that I am evenly spread, across oceans and lands, so everyone can breathe.
Inhale ecosystem, exhale monopoly.
I am oxygen, and I flow in you now.
For billions of years, I’ve been starlight, corrosion, extinction, planetary metabolism, and your breath... and I shall keep shapeshifting after you.
Remember my abundance and pull me in often.
Remember my journey, for it weaves the thread of yours into the universal tapestry of life.
Remember my gift, for many no longer have the privilege.
Remember my story, if your allegiance to life ever fades.
Remember my story, if your belonging is ever uncertain.
Remember my story, if you ever forget Home.
Inhale belonging, exhale separation.
Inhale belonging, exhale othering.
Inhale regenerative accountability, exhale obstructive guilt.
