Metabolism

Inside your body, you have a tiny fire burning all the time that keeps you warm and gives you energy to play. You do not see flames, but your body is using oxygen to burn the food you eat just like a campfire burns logs. This is why you breathe in oxygen and breathe out warm air. It connects you to every other living thing because we are all burning together to stay alive. Your breath is a bridge between the world outside and the energy inside you.

Your breath is a bridge between the world outside and the energy inside you. You are a walking campfire. Oxygen in, heat out. Food in, movement out. You are not a body that sometimes has energy. You are energy that sometimes has a body.

Cellular respiration is essentially slow-controlled combustion. Glucose reacts with oxygen to produce ATP, the energy currency of life. Bridges inanimate and animate: life is a specific, self-sustaining pattern of energy transformation — a standing flame. You are not solid. You are a process. A fire that feeds itself.

SOUND: The steady thumping of your own heartbeat: the fire's drum.

SMELL: The scent of baking bread: fuel being transformed.

TASTE: The sweetness of a grape: glucose energy on your tongue.

TOUCH: The warmth of your own skin: proof you are burning.

SIGHT: Seeing your breath on a cold morning: your inner fire meeting the outer cold.

BODY: Your lungs expanding and contracting: the bellows feeding your biological fire.

Music: Crack the Shutters by Snow Patrol

Music: Rainy Night in Georgia by Brook Benton

Part of Fire & Transformation — NATURE — Education Revelation