The Breath of God

The text under consideration in this contextual analysis:

4 ¶ These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8 ¶ And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

The Pre-creation and The Suspended Creation.

Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

God made the plants and the herb prior to placing them in the earth, and causing them to grow, presumably because He had not caused it to rain, nor formed a man to till the ground. He chose to delay the creation of plants and herbs until man had been formed (not created, not made, but formed), and until it had rained. This postponed creation, suspended it, and in a way held it up, until certain assurances were in place--that the plants and herbs would receive proper attention--a tiller of the ground, and rain.

Why, then, would Lord God pre-create the plants and herbs? Why not create man first, and then the plants and herbs? Or the plants first and then man? Wouldn't that have made more sense? Why the pre-creation of plants and herbs? My explanation may prove to be a little confusing. I will try to explain it as clearly as I can.

The Tiller

The pre-creation gave man a reason for being. Now that the plants and herbs had been made (or pre-created, or pre-made), existing pre-creatively before the Tiller, man's role would be pre-defined and his purpose preordained. He would be Tiller of the Ground. The pre-creation of plant and herbs substantiated that role, and seemingly made it possible. If man had been created before the plants and herbs, man would not have had a clear-cut purpose, or role to fulfill. I'll discuss this further when I discuss Order of Creation, and Creation Reversal.

Because the Second Creation is a Reversed Creation, the Order of Creation is important. In the First Creation man came last in the Creation Order, and was given dominion over all that was created. In the Second Creation, plants and herbs must come last in the order of things, if man is to be subject to them--that is, Tiller of the ground. The plants and herbs could have been placed in the earth before man but that wouldn't have reversed the Order of Creation. That Order of Creation would be as in the First, and in the Second Creation it's important to reverse the First. It's almost as though the Second is a kind of mirror image of the First, and the Creation Order that reverses the First had to be maintained.

If man had been created first and the plants and herbs last, that would have reversed the order of the First, but that would have put the cart before the horse. We would have had a Tiller without a Garden to till. And that would not have made man subject to the Earth, and the plants, if no plants existed in the first place. Remember this is a lot like cause and effect. We would have a Tiller but no garden. We would have a garden but no Tiller.

No simultaneous creations. One creation must follow the other, spatially or temporally.

So the answer (rather cleverly devised, I must say), pre-create the plants and the herbs, and create man first. Hold up the rain, and water the earth with a mist. It was important that the First Creation be reversed by the Second, and so it was. For if the plants and herbs had preceded man (planted in the ground, rather than pre-created), he wouldn't have been subject to the plants and herbs by virtue of the Order of Creation. By bringing the plants in last, but pre-creating them first, man becomes subject to them, and they would hold dominion. The last becomes first, and the first last, so to speak.

Order of Creation and The Reversed Creation

In the First Creation man is created last, but is given dominion over all, including beasts, birds, and plants. As Tiller of the Ground (a cultivator of soil) man would bring forth from the Earth by working and conditioning the earth--by serving that which grows, and allowing them to prosper.

In the First Creation the Earth was made for man, in the Second Creation man was made for the Earth (to be Tiller of the Ground). The Creation Reversal continuing, even when it comes to man's duties, purpose, and reason for being.

Just as the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, in the Second Creation, man was made for the Garden and not the Garden for man. In the First, all things were made for man. If in the First Creation all things served man, in the Second, man must serve all things. If in the First man comes first, in the Second he comes last.

Rather than the Earth being fruitful and multiplying of it's own accord (as it was commanded to in the First Creation), it was now man's duty to cause the Earth to be fruitful and multiply, a duty that was given to the Earth and plants in the First Creation.

The One Day Creation

4 ¶ These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens....

Lord God required only One Day to create the earth and the heavens. God of the first creation took six days, and sealed, and Capstoned it with a seventh day. Why One Day? There are no Evening and Morning in this One Day Creation. Just this One Day. The Creation Reversal answers this question, as well. If the First Creation took six days to create the heaven and the earth and all the host of them, and one day to seal and capstone the previous six, the Second Creation reversed the First by creating the earth and the heavens in One Day.

This will be discussed further under the heading, Toward the East, below.

The Upside-Down Rain

But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

The Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, yet the "whole face of the ground" is watered, not from the heavens but from the earth. I call this the Upside-Down Rain. And this phenomenon continues the Creation Reversal that I discussed earlier. Creation is reversed, and the earth sends up water in the form of a "mist." Although I recognize that a mist is not a rain, I call it that because it substituted for one.

Please note that the "whole face of the ground" is watered, which means that the "whole" surface of it was wet, without a dry part.

The Classic Elements

The Classic elements consist primarily of four elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. We find all (or, almost all) present at the formation of man.

Man is formed from the dust of the earth (Earth), a dust that was wet (Water), and was given the breath of life by God breathing into his nostrils (Air), and he became a "living soul (Fire)." The soul is considered the seat of the Emotions or Feelings.

Although Fire is not truly substantiated by the text, nor the context, as representing the soul, I intuit it anyway to complete the four elements. If you wish, you may think of only three of the elements being present, Earth, Water, And Air. It's almost equation of a sort, where a,b,c = x, 'X' being the "living soul." and a,b,c being Earth, Water and Air respectively.

The Breath of Life

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Why would God breathe the breath of life into man's nostrils? Why not his mouth? Man uses it, too, for breathing, doesn't he?

Mouth to mouth would have suggested Creator to Creator. Mouth to nostril suggests Creator to creature (that which is created). One places man on a par with the Creator (and I mean this from the perspective of being Self-created, not God-created), and the other places man more in the role of creature, that which is created.

It is called the Breath of Life. Life's Breath. God's Breath.

We're told that God "breathed into his [man's] nostrils the breath of life...." This is of extraordinary importance, as we gather that something from God is extended to man, and that which is extended is the result of God breathing. God breathe into man by way of the nasal passages the "Breath of Life." The Breath of Life, by way of God's breathing, entered into man, and man became something that he wasn't before God breathe, a "living soul." I will discuss this later under the heading, The Two Souls.

Life's Not Optional

Because God breathed the breath of life into man's nostrils, rather than his mouth, it suggests man's lack of an option here. Man has two orifices on the face with which he may breathe--the mouth and the nose.

Were God to breathe into his mouth rather than the nostrils, man could have exercised the option to keep the mouth shut and not accept the breath of life. Because God breathe the breath of life into man's nostrils, it suggests that the option did not exist, nor was it given.

Hence, my conclusion, that Life is not optional. Man cannot not be. In that he has no choice, say, nor will. Man might destroy the physical body (his form), but he cannot destroy his immortal Life. I will contextually support this later in a further discussion and analysis.


The Two Souls

To say that man became a living soul is to suggest that there are souls that are not living, but can be once certain conditions are met, God breathing into man's nostrils the breath of life.

Before God breathe into man's nostrils, he was just a soul. He became a "living soul" after God breathed into his nostrils. In the Creation of Adam fresco by Michelangelo, we see Adam's out-stretched left arm resting on his left knee to receive, not the breath of life, but the spark of life. What's interesting to note here is that Adam is alive (alive in the sense of being aware), although the spark of life hadn't yet been imparted, suggesting that he was a soul before the impartation and a "living soul" after the impartation.

The passage doesn't say that God created man, but that He "formed man [shaped, molded him] of the dust of the ground." When God breathe into man's nostrils the breath of life it was then that man became a "living soul." Its not a stretch here to assume that the "breath of life" is the same as a "living soul," for without it man would have been a soul but not a "living soul."

Individuality, The Form of Dust, and The Breather.

The breath of life existed before man was formed (individualized), before he became a "living soul," suggesting that the breath of life is ongoing, but did not always exist as the form of man, our individuality. Since God has always existed, the "breath of life" has always existed, and is as eternal as God. God imparted to man that which animated him (a "living soul"). That which God imparted with His breathing was a part of the divine. And because the breath of life was a part, a divine part, of God, that which He made with his breath, man, was (as a "living soul"), also part of the divinity, and eternality of God.

The form may cease to be, but not the breath of life which transformed the form of dust into a "living soul," an eternal being.

In short, God, The Breather, continues to breathe for us, and as long as He does, we live, and we are the "breath of life." As form, and as a "breath of life," man is differentiated. The "breath of life" differentiates him, although man seems to be something apart from That Which Breathes, while at the same time maintaining his oneness with God, All That Is. Man is differentiated, then, without losing his connection with the Whole. I'm inclined to believe that the "Breath of God" is different for each, although the Source is the same.

The Indissoluble Connection

I shared the story, in an accompanying post, that God asked me to "read the Bible with Him." I'm beginning to understand now what He had in mind. I knew that there was something in the passage that I was missing, but I couldn't fathom what it was. If only I could open my eyes wider, set aside all my preconceived ideas of what was there, and just allow the text to reveal itself. Stymied, I took the passage under consideration into my meditations and mulled it over, especially the part about "God breathe into man's nostrils the breath of life," and something remarkable happened, something truly amazing was revealed, and this is what I was told:

God exhaled....

There it was. All I needed to know. I was truly excited about this revelation because of what it had to say about the whole process.

Without us, the breath of life is incomplete. A breath can be thought of as both an inhalation and an exhalation. We are that which inhales for God. We are God's Inhalers. We inhale for God, He exhales for us. He breathes out, we breathe in. He exhales, we inhale. The connection is complete. God needs us as we need Him. The breath of life maintains and sustains Us both.

God hasn't stopped breathing. No where in the passage does it say that God breathe once, and that was that. God didn't stop breathing and we didn't stop inhaling. Many spiritual processes are replicated in the physical, and this is one of them.

The collaboration between God and man is what keeps the indissoluble connection intact, keeps it unbroken, and in place.

Toward the East

¶ And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

The garden was planted in Eden. Eden in Hebrew means "delight," and delight means "great pleasure," or a "source of great pleasure." By planting the Garden eastward in Eden this would appear to be the ideal location for it. There it would get the morning and evening sun, and it would be the first location in that land, Eden, to be so graced. Now the Creation Reversal is complete, whereas in the First Creation the Evening and the Morning represented a Day, here, a Day is represented as a Morning and a Evening.

So it was not by accident that the Garden was placed in a location where it faced the rising sun--"eastward in Eden."

What we have, then, is a garden planted in a place called Delight (great pleasure), where it would be first to catch the early rays of the sun. In this garden, in a place called Delight, God "put the man whom he had formed," to "till the ground" to maintain the plant and herbs which God pre-created. Man in this narration is clearly secondary to both the garden and the plants and herbs. Delight (great pleasure) became man's purpose, his mission, and his reason for being.

Practicum

Here's how to practicalize what has been revealed. We can take in more of the "breath of life" than we currently do. The Bible states that "in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."

Let me include the whole passage from whence the one above was taken. Please note the statement that "he [God] giveth to all life, and breath...."

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men [We're All One] for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. 29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

Because God is a Spirit, we dwell in Spirit and in Life. You can use your meditations to bring more of that Spirit into your own being, as it were. As you sit or lie quietly, visualize God's Spirit and Life all about you. And as you do, inhale through your nostrils that breath of life, that Spirit, being keenly aware that that is what you're doing. Stay conscious of the fact that you are inhaling Spirit and Life, knowing that God has not stopped breathing out, exhaling, or we would cease to be altogether.

What we want to do is take in and ever-increasing amount of that breath of life that is always being exhaled (breathe out) by the divine. And we do this as I have outlined above, by remembering to inhale and exhale through the nose.

I wasn't sure what would happen when first I did this breathing exercise. But each time that I did it, since beginning the regimen, some rather usual things have happened. I won't detail them here, but I would like to know, if you decide to try it, what your experiences with this exercise is. It seems a rather simple exercise, inhale through the nose, and exhale through the nose, visualizing that you dwell in God, His divine Spirit, and knowing that you're drawing in that Spirit and Life each time that you inhale.

We can, then, transform air, a gas in the physical realm, into the Spirit and Life of the spiritual realm. That's how powerful we are as creators. We can change a rock to water, and water to wine, and air to spirit with just our thoughts alone--as long as Spirit stands before us:

I [God] will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.

Therefore, I say, "Fill your lungs, and drink your fill!"