Giving the bones back — Susan Raffo

Every single part of our body is a gift from those who lived before. You, me, each of us is a weaving of some seven billion billion billion atoms or something in the area of 52 trillion cells. Around 60 percent of you is water; even the part that seems the most dense — our bones — are a third fluid. The food we eat is broken down into elements which we absorb into our bloodstream, move throughout our body and then use to build every cell, enzyme and tissue that makes up you. The food we eat — a mix of plants and animals that also sometimes includes plastic — absorbs elements from rocks, soil and water. Those elements are transformed in the bodies of the wheat and apple, chicken and goat before then becoming the elements that are moved through our bodies. And those rocks, soil and water? They are the remains of lives before, the same kin that includes our bloodline ancestors and the ancestors of the wheat and apple, chicken and goat. Oh, and stardust. Don’t forget the stardust. As Nikita Gill writes: “We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins, carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains. 93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames, we are all just stars that have people names”.

We do not and can not own a single thing…. and that includes the elements that make up the secrets that go with us to our graves, decomposing back into soil to start the cycle all over again.