A Joyful Practice

Essential Stuff (mostly blessings, music, and links) March 13, 2024

“Ramadān Mubarak, Blessed Ramadān!” to anyone observing the holy month of Ramadān. (Keep your eyes open!) Many blessings to all, and especially to those observing Lent and/or the 19-Day Fast. May we breathe deeply throughout this “Season for Nonviolence” and all other unique seasons!

“It didn’t help that early metabolic research began with a view of the world that was completely backward. As the Enlightenment got rolling and modern Western science was born in the 1600s, the general consensus was that we didn’t get anything important out of the air. Instead, scientists thought that body heat (as well as the heat from fire) represented a substance they called ‘phlogiston’ leaving the body. Phlogiston was thought to be the essential stuff in combustible material that made it flammable and was released as it burned. Air absorbed phlogiston, but it could only hold so much….

Oxygen wasn’t discovered until 1774, by the chemist Joseph Priestley. He called it ‘dephlogisticated air,’ thinking oxygen was a purified form of air that was free of phlogiston.”

— quoted from the ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’ section of ‘Chapter 3 – What Is This Going to Cost Me?’ in BURN: New Research Blows the Lid Off How We Really Burn Calories, Lose Weight, and Stay Healthy by Herman Pontzer, PhD

Joseph Priestley, the 18th-century English theologian, clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, liberal political theorist, was born today in 1733, according to the Julian calendar. Two hundred and seventy years later (today in 2003, according to the Gregorian calendar), the science journal Nature published an article that brings us full circle and highlights the really essential stuff.

CLICK HERE for a philosophy-focused post about the work of Joseph Priestley and the three archeologists who identified fossilized footprints (and handprints) in Italy.

Please join me today (Wednesday, March 13^th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “03132022 Breath & Steps”]

“(175.) […] Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process. And great powers with respect to some things are generally attended with defects in others; and these may not appear in a man’s writings.”

— quoted from “Chapter VII. (1780—1787.) Memoirs” in The Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley, LL.D. F.R.S. &c. in Twenty-Five Volumes, Volume I. Part I, Containing Life and Correspondence, (1733—1787.) by Joseph Priestley (edited, with notes, by John Towill Rutt.)

In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)

### This is a unique breath in and a unique breath out. ###