If I could give you one gift before I leave this world, what I want most to give, and share, is the breath of Laniakea.

In the native Hawaiian language, Laniakea means “immense heaven.” Astronomers adopted this word to name the supercluster of over 100,000 galaxies in which our Milky Way is but a tiny dot. And within our little galactic spark swarm an estimated three hundred billion stars, our sun among them, this infinitesimal golden dust mote, sustaining the earth and the planets.

You might think that in all this radiance you are so small, almost nothing. But who is aware of that unbounded abyss surrounding the farthest edges of time? You are. Even as you hear these words, are you not visualizing those stars and galaxies floating in limitless black silence? Of course you are. Is your awareness of vast empty space not the very space of which it is aware?

Which means that the entire cosmos happens in your consciousness, and the swirling majesty of all creation soundlessly bursts into the hologram of You, awakening a jewel in the core of your heart that cries, “I Am.”

Now close your eyes for a moment and breathe in, feeling your attention rise up your spine, filling the hollow places in your body, to the top of your skull. Rest there, in your tender fontanelle, where once pulsated the soft spot of infancy, before those bone gates closed to shut out the Infinite. Let the grace of pure attention soften it again. This is your birthright. It is the portal where a thousand angels come and go with every breath.

Then breathe out, letting your attention soak like gentle mist through the body, down to your sacrum, down to your toes. Let this breath of astonishment continue to rise and fall, up to your galactic crown, and down into your loam, ever so quietly refreshing each cell of your flesh.

When you are ready, feel the Mother’s lips touch the top of your skull. She is the Goddess who was at play with the Creator in the beginning of time (Proverbs 8:30). You may call her Shakti, Sophia, Shekinah, the Holy Spirit, or Chi Qu’an Yin. Or simply let Her be a nameless flow, the grace of pure existence. But know this beyond any doubt or hesitation: She who whirled the stars into chalices of golden nectar, has come to dwell in you as this very Breath.

When She touches your nape, don’t you feel some sparkling wine pour through the beaded mala of your vertebrae? This is not mere starlight, but the nectar of Laneakia trickling down your spine. She pours her un-created radiance through your body, where it ferments into love, so that you too become a breath-giver, illuminating the world around you, greening the earth.

Are we not all exhalations of the Goddess? Are we not one breath in eight billion bodies?