Today, I’m offering a fun exercise from my book, Writing as a Sacred Path. Enjoy! Try it, and let me know how it works for you.
One of the surprises of modern science is the realization that the atoms that make up our bodies have existed since the Big Bang and will continue to exist until the end of the Universe. A hydrogen atom in a drop of your blood may many times have been a part of the ocean or a cloud–on this planet or another. It may have been in the cells of untold numbers of plants and animals. It has no doubt been in drinking water, urine, icebergs, pomegranates, comets, and earthworms. It has probably been part of thousands of human bodies before becoming part of yours. Perhaps it was in the tears of a prehistoric woman whose child had died or in the heart of an Amazonian hunter or in the doomed Hindenburg zeppelin. Try this writing exercise to get in touch with this remarkable unity.
1. Write an atom’s history. With these myriad possibilities in mind, write a history of one hydrogen atom that is in a drop of your own blood. What route did that single atom take through the eons? How did it get from one place to another? Did evaporation move it from the ocean to the sky? Did a little boy’s peeing in the snow move it from his body to the ground? Be as specific and detailed as you can.
2. Write the atom’s future. Now go in the other direction: when this atom leaves your body, where might it go and how? Imagine it traveling through the future. Visualize all the things it may one day be part of.
Try this exercise–or come up with your own twist on it. Then leave a comment and let me know how it went.