Air Space

Our little fishpond has a circulating pump that we turn on every day in order to create an airhole in the ice. Otherwise, the water becomes anerobic. The fish need their oxygen too!

Every couple of months the little pump, which is slightly larger than a printer cartridge, gets jammed up with algae, even in the winter. The fish may be hibernating (well, not "true" hibernation), but the algae is not. Algae is growing even when ice covers the pond, and thus algae requires oxygen too.

Cheryl at a swimming pool in Greece in October.

There are a lot of demands on the "air" space in that little fishpond--fish need oxygen, frogs buried in the mud need some oxygen, algae need oxygen, and all the decaying leaves and fish poop use oxygen.

I know, all too well, what happens when ice covers the pond, and there's no airhole. Pee-yew! Everything is dead.

The breath may not be that interesting to us as a meditation object, but if we didn't have oxygen, we'd suddenly find the breath very interesting. Stop. Watch your breath. Look around you at the people who are sharing your air space. Look out the window and notice trees that are sharing your air space.

We all need oxygen--even the algae.