AIR
Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these…that they may live.
Ezekiel 37:9
As counseling psychology students, we were taught that one of the quickest and surest ways to build rapport with a new client (or one in distress) is to very subtly sync our breathing with theirs. As we mirror their rhythms, it sends the unconscious message: We’re the same. You can trust me. You are safe. Gradually, as we intentionally adjust our breathing, we can gently guide theirs toward calm and connection. It sounds simple, but it’s incredibly effective.
Perhaps this is because “our breathing is controlled by the oldest part of our brain, the respiratory center of the brain stem, a relic that originated before the dawn of consciousness.”[1] While we can go weeks without food and days without water, we can only go a few minutes without air before the brain stem hijacks our entire system, demanding air for the body it serves.
Air isn’t the most abundant of elements. Author David Suzuki teaches that if the earth were the size of a basketball, the portion where weather occurs and organisms live would be no thicker than the “gritty slime” on its exterior.[2] Air is, however, the most equitable element. It does not leave us with only a fraction of itself for half the day as light does, nor does it desert areas of the world as water does. No, our atmosphere offers an ocean of oxygen and carbon dioxide shared in an endless dance of generosity among microbes, plants, beasts and humans where each gives and receives according to the needs of self and other. Suzuki also declares, “Invisible and indivisible, air is a place without borders or owners, shared by all life on Earth.”[3]
There is no atmosphere quite like Iona. The island is called a thin place, but what makes it so is not just its ancient stone or storied life; it is the very air. Iona’s winds smell of sea and sheep, but also of hope and healing. Somehow, the wind there does more than move across your skin; it moves through your spirit too, as though every current breathes peace into you. Celtic author George Russell, offers that when we walk through the natural world, “the air we breathe is like wine poured for us by some heavenly cupbearer.”[4] Indeed, the winds of Iona impart a natural high that fills your lungs, clears your mind, and restores your soul.
Wind itself begins in sunlight. As the sun warms the earth unevenly, some surfaces like land, sea, stone, and forest absorb heat more quickly than others. Warm air rises, cooler air rushes in to take its place, and the great stirring begins. The turning of the earth bends these currents into vast rivers of air, what we call the jet streams, that circle the globe and spill down into local gusts. What moves against your skin is not only weather but the breath of a planet in motion, the ancient exchange of heat and air that has been at work since the beginning.[5]
Fueled by the jet stream, the wind blows at an average of twenty-nine miles per hour from the west across Iona,[6] and while it rolls through the whole of the island, it rushes over the top of Dun I, which climbers generally ascend from the east. This affords them protection from the winds so that the only rushes of air experienced are those huffing and puffing from their lungs. But, at the top, there is no escaping the continuous buffeting. This is as it should be.
After the climb, lungs stretched and burning with effort, the body thrums with vitality. Resting atop Dun I, it is the gusting wind that calls you into the deepest breath, drawing in not only air but the fullness of life and promise. Turn west and nothing interrupts the sweep of ocean until Newfoundland, a horizon infinite and uncluttered. To the north(ish) lies Staffa, inviting wonder and joyful creativity with its other-worldly basalt columns, a melodic cave, and the most enchanting puffin colony. Eastward, rise Mull and the mainland, the way home for most pilgrims. And to the south stretches Ireland, from which St. Columba once launched his coracle in repentance. Encircled by these winds on Dun I, one can hold past, present, and possibility together with the gusts stripping away what-might-have-been and opening eyes, hearts, and spirits to what is, and what yet may be.
On my first ascent of Dun I, a fellow pilgrim invited us to join her in an indigenous prayer to the four winds, and although I was videoing only a few feet from her, it is only the wind’s voice that carries in the video below. How appropriate!
Within spirituality and religion, nothing is more universally held as sacred and life-giving than air, wind and breath. In The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram explains, “By virtue of its pervading presence, its utter invisibility, and its manifest influence on all manner of visible phenomena, the air…is the archetype of all that is ineffable, unknowable, yet undeniably real and efficacious.”[7] This is certainly true in Christianity as well. The body has its beginning in mud and water, but life begins when God shares breath. Similarly, Christ spends years of an embodied life with the disciples, but their spiritual adventure really begins with his breathing into them.
The language of faith has always turned to wind when trying to name the unnameable. In Hebrew it is ruach; in Greek, pneuma, both meaning breath, spirit, wind. What science describes as uneven heating and planetary rotation, scripture describes as the breath of God hovering over chaos, animating dust, rattling dry bones, and filling people with power and prophecy. The same unseen currents that shape clouds and carve coastlines also move through our lungs and spirits so that we might also participate in the reshaping of the world.
It is fitting, then, that the world’s winds not only roll with persistence and power through Iona, but also that the Iona Community, a dispersed religious community working for peace and justice, centers its work on the island as well. The community believes that, like air, peace and justice should pulse through all the world indivisible, without borders or owners. The movement seeks to live in sync with the most vulnerable communities in creation so that calm and connection might be restored to all.
Just as the wind moves without distinction, filling every corner of the earth with life and motion, so too does the Spirit of God seek to move through us. When we open ourselves to her currents, we participate in a work far greater than ourselves: the life-giving work of renewal and justice. We can pause to feel it ourselves; sometimes the wind is at our back offering support and encouragement. Other times, we will feel it pressing against us, building strength and resilience. In all times, we can know the Spirit/ruach/pneuma of God will be hovering over land recreating the chaos, restoring dry bones, and empowering the people of God to do the work of God.
Perhaps we are those “bones” in need of Spirit, but may we also be those through whom Spirit breathes.
[1] Suzuki, David, 32.
[2] Suzuki, Sacred Balance, 43.
[3] Suzuki. Sacred Balance, 49.
[4] Cowan, Tom. Yearning for the Wind: Celtic Reflections on Nature and the Soul. Kindle Edition, 150.
[5] Public Broadcasting Systems. Earth’s Unequal Heating and Winds. https://lsintspl3.wgbh.org/en-us/lesson/buac17-il-iloceanoverturn/2. Accessed on September 13, 2025.
[6] https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/%408316744/climate?
[7] Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. Kindle Edition, 226-227.