I have yet to see a conceptualization of reality that accounts for the fact that at any moment, we exist at the crossroads of an infinite number of intersecting cyclical processes.

Not many of us can ignore the rise and fall of the sun, the most salient reminder of the periodic nature of our environment. We find comfort in the winter, and adventure in the summer. Our very inhalation is but half the story, don’t hold your breath for the rest.

And it’s not just life. Our planets move around the sun without us. Autocatalytic processes sustain themselves however inorganic they may be. Light, sound, heat, gravity all travel in waves. Frequency, wavelength and amplitude are properties of periodicity at the very core of nature.

Close your eyes, and feel your breath enter and leave your lungs. It’s not too long before the beat of your heart makes itself known. One can remain here, caught in the balance of these two incredible forces within our bodies and marvel at their efficiency and autonomy, but let’s go deeper and imagine each breath and heartbeat flooding the body with oxygenated blood, delivering nutrients to tens of trillions of cells. Think about that. Tens of trillions of cells, sustained by our breath and heart rhythm and cycles of nutrition. Each a living entity in their own right, each with cyclic processes and mechanisms of their own.

We stand here at the edge of trillions of cells. We stand here on the plane of the earth as it spins and orbits. We stand here and breath, and sense the heat, sights and sounds as their waves crash upon our senses. We stand here at the end of the world as it renews itself over and over again.

Maybe there are philosophies or theories of physics that I will never hear about, nor every hope to understand. Maybe I’ve seen our best attempts to describe such a complex periodic system in the form of a Yin Yang symbol or a mandala, or chant. Maybe it’s so obvious and simple that it’s hidden from us in plain sight, just inside the cracks of the mirror we use to look out into the universe, and back again, into ourselves.

So we close our eyes, breath and feel our heartbeat. Isn’t that enough? We strain to hear the music. We move and quicken our heartbeats. We howl and sharpen our breath. We see the lights, feel the heat. We dance and howl and breath, can clap our hands to the music, and stomp our feet as we spin and spin like Sufi Dervishes, and spin and spin like the Earth itself, and spin and spin even if we stopped. We do this because it’s all there is, even if it’s hard to know exactly what that is.