Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast.

I'm Emanuel Von Lee, executive editor of Emergence Magazine.

Each week, we feature a new interview, narrated essay, or story, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

Thank you. culture, and spirituality. Crystal Wilkinson is the author of the Birds of Opulence, Water Street, and Blackberries

and an associate professor of English in the Creative Writing MFA program at the University of Kentucky.

At a time that is punctuated by the loss of breath, when we are increasingly gripped by the profound understanding that the right to breathe is the right to life.

This essay from Crystal contemplates the intimacy of breathing as she considers how we live, die, and love.

My mother is dying again.

I sleep on the couch in the living room while my partner curls up snoring in our new bed.

Within reach are a water bottle, three remote controls, an amber bottle of Alprazam, a novel, laptop, and cell phone.

My mother appears just as she did a week before she died.

Her mouth pursed into a thimble, panting short, rapid breaths.

The bedside monitor sounds, nurses rush in, I stand in the middle of her

hospital room, helpless, and then I wake up relieved to be lying on the couch. My mother died

four years ago, a dream, a panic attack. This occurs so often it no longer matters what I call it.

I reach for the remote control, push the channel button until something steals my attention,

until my breath slows. I sip cold water. I almost never read. I almost never write. Sometimes I eat snacks. I almost

always post something on social media. Sometimes I play videos. I almost always prefer videos of babies.

Sometimes I go to the bathroom and stop by our bedroom to peek in on my partner.

He is snoring.

He is alive.

Occasionally, I slip under the covers next to him, but I hate breaking his sleep. Sometimes I return to sleep

...