Between Breath and Silence, We Come and Go.
I sit in silence, somewhere between my own breath and stillness.
Before writing this sentence, I sat in silence for a long time, not quite knowing where to begin, because this is not an ordinary silence. The weight of this silence, in its emotional dimension, pressed down on me and wrapped around me in a deeply uncomfortable way. Sometimes silence is breath, sometimes it is rest, relief, or a pause — and sometimes it is a weight that is difficult to carry. Silence is a place where we find ourselves, a space of reflection, and at times even our closest companion. It depends on what you want to hear, what you are ready to hear, and what kind of relationship you have with yourself and with the world.
Today, I sit in a different kind of silence. Between optimism, life, and the future — and the energy of illness and death. Between breath and silence, and the breath of death and the silence after which nothing seems to follow.
Recently, I have been accompanied by the energy of illness and death. It awakens reflection in a person about what truly matters. When someone around us passes away, we begin to analyze their life, our own life. We reflect on different aspects, we remember. It is human nature to analyze. The vast majority of people regret unfulfilled dreams, moments that will never return. They wonder whether something could have been done differently. Death is something that awaits each of us, regardless of who we are, what we have, or what we have done. In the face of death, we are all equal. And in a way, each of us meets the same silence. It is a silence that will come.
In situations of loss, people react very differently depending on their level of awareness, their beliefs, and their social conditioning.
Personally, in the face of the tragedy that death is — and especially in such circumstances — I try to look for something positive. Is that even possible? It is, because our thinking belongs to us. I believe that in some situations, death is more merciful than a life lived in suffering. Sometimes it is a release, a relief — both for those who are ill and for their loved ones. This way of thinking, especially in more rigid religious environments, is often misunderstood, as if the suffering of both the sick and their families should carry more value than the acceptance of what is inevitable.
Can death be good?
What I believe in is closest to the idea of reincarnation. I believe that our energy is infinite — it flows, it never truly ends, and we always return home in some form.
I do not follow any one religion. I am spiritual, and I have embraced different values and beliefs from various paths — from Hindu traditions, from Buddhist understanding, and from the philosophy of Tao. Tao feels closest to me. It carries the vision of living a fulfilled, harmonious life while we are alive, and of continuing that journey through every next form we take.
In Tao, there is no rigid beginning and no final end. There is only movement, transformation, and return. Everything that exists emerges from the same source and eventually dissolves back into it. Like water, we take shape for a moment — as a body, as a name, as a story — and then we soften, shift, and become something else. Nothing is forced, nothing is permanent, nothing is separate. Life and death are not opposites, but part of the same continuous flow.
From this perspective, death is not a failure, nor a punishment, nor an ultimate loss. It is a transformation. A quiet return. A transition from form into formlessness — and perhaps, one day, into form again.
Can acceptance be a good thing?
Is it possible to feel sadness, and at the same time know that it might be better this way?
I believe it is.
Because we are capable of holding two truths at once. We can grieve and accept. We can feel loss and understand the release. We can sit between breath and silence — and allow both to exist without resistance.
And maybe that is where peace begins.
There is one more thing that becomes impossible to ignore when we stand close to death.
How precious life really is.
How easily we forget.
We move through our days as if we have endless time. As if everything that truly matters can wait. As if there will always be another moment, another chance, another tomorrow. And so we postpone what is essential. We rush. We chase. We fill our lives with things that, in the face of death, lose all meaning.
Humanity is constantly running — often in directions that lead nowhere.
We are taught to achieve, to accumulate, to become, to prove. But rarely are we taught how to simply be. To be present. To be here, fully. To feel life as it is unfolding, not as something to get through, but as something to experience.
And yet, when death comes close — everything becomes clear.
What matters is not how much we have done, but how deeply we have lived.
Not how much we have gathered, but how much we have felt.
Not how far we have gone, but how present we were along the way.
Life is not something happening somewhere in the future.
It is happening now.
In this breath.
In this moment.
In the quiet spaces we so often overlook.
There is something sacred in slowing down. In choosing presence over distraction. In choosing connection over distance. In allowing ourselves to be soft, to be open, to be human with one another.
To appreciate.
To notice.
To say what matters while we still can.
Because time is not something we truly possess.
It is something we are given — for a while.
And maybe the greatest tragedy is not death itself, but living as if we are not alive.
Forgetting to see.
Forgetting to feel.
Forgetting to be here.
So perhaps gratitude is where it all begins.
Gratitude for this life — exactly as it is.
For the breath that comes and goes.
For the people who walk beside us, even if only for a moment.
For the chance to experience, to learn, to love.
Because this moment — this ordinary, fleeting, imperfect moment — is the only place where life truly exists.
And it is more than enough.
We leave, we change form, and one day we will become someone else. We will return to experience different lives, to learn different lessons, to walk new paths shaped by new circumstances.
Perhaps we will meet again — and not even recognize each other.
I used to say, half playfully, “We will meet again when we are cats.” It carried a certain softness, a way of easing the weight of separation. But over time, my understanding has shifted. I no longer believe that we move backward into simpler forms. I believe we evolve. Our soul does not regress — it expands, deepens, becomes more aware. Each life is not a repetition, but a continuation.
Our soul evolves.
And I believe that before we arrive here, before we take on a body, we choose. That each of us, on some level beyond this human awareness, designs the outline of our earthly life. The experiences we wish to have, the lessons we want to move through, the people we are meant to encounter. When to arrive, and when to leave.
From the perspective of our human, physical, three-dimensional existence, we do not remember this. We move through life often feeling uncertain, searching, questioning. But beneath that surface, there is something that knows.
We are guided.
By our higher self, by our soul, by something quiet yet constant within us — our intuition.
In the philosophy of Tao, there is an understanding that life unfolds in alignment with a deeper order, one that does not need to be controlled or fully understood by the mind. The Tao does not explain — it flows. And when we allow ourselves to trust that flow, even in moments of loss, even in the presence of death, something within us softens.
Perhaps nothing is accidental.
Perhaps every meeting, every goodbye, every beginning and every ending carries meaning beyond what we can see.
And perhaps, in ways we cannot yet comprehend, we are always finding our way back to each other — not as who we were, but as who we are becoming.
Across different spiritual traditions, death is not seen as an end to be feared, but as a transition to be understood.
In Hindu philosophy, death is part of an eternal cycle — a movement of the soul through many lifetimes, known as samsara. The soul does not disappear; it continues its journey, carrying forward the essence of its experiences. Each life offers an opportunity for growth, for learning, for becoming more aligned with truth. Death, in this sense, is not a loss, but a doorway — a passage into the next chapter of existence. It is neither punishment nor tragedy, but a continuation of a much larger story.
In Buddhist understanding, the focus shifts slightly. There is no permanent, unchanging self that moves from one life to another. Instead, there is a continuous flow of causes and conditions — a stream of becoming. What we call “self” is only a temporary formation, constantly changing. Death is simply part of this process of arising and passing. It reminds us of impermanence, of the fragile and fleeting nature of all things. And in that awareness, there is something deeply liberating. If everything changes, then suffering, too, can change. If nothing is fixed, then we are not trapped. Death becomes not something to resist, but something that reveals the truth of life itself.
In Taoist philosophy, death is perhaps the most natural of all transformations. Just as day turns into night, and seasons shift without resistance, life flows into death as part of the same continuous movement. There is no sharp division between the two. To live in harmony with the Tao is to accept this flow — to understand that everything that comes into form will one day dissolve, and that this dissolution is not a failure, but a return. Like water returning to the ocean, we do not disappear; we merge back into the source from which we came.
Seen through these lenses, death softens. It loses its harsh edges. It becomes less of an ending and more of a transition, less of a loss and more of a transformation.
And maybe this is what allows us to breathe a little easier.
To not hold on so tightly.
To not turn death into suffering before it even arrives.
Because if life is movement, then death is part of that movement too.
And if we are, as we believe, something more than just this one form — then nothing truly ends here.
It only changes.
It continues.
And in its own quiet way, it returns home.
I was raised in a Catholic country, within a narrative shaped by martyrdom, collective suffering, and deeply rooted systems of belief centered around pain and sacrifice. For a long time, this was the only language of spirituality I knew — one that often asked people to endure, to carry, to remain in sorrow as proof of love, loyalty, or faith.
But today, I no longer identify with that way of seeing the world.
As an adult, as a conscious being, I chose my own path. A path that allows me to grow, to expand, and to meet life with awareness rather than fear. A belief that does not ask me to suffocate in grief, but to move through it with presence and understanding.
I do not drown myself in sorrow, and I do not hold on to pain as something sacred that must be preserved.
I remind myself that we are here for the living. That clinging to suffering does not bring anyone back, does not restore what has been lost, does not serve life in any meaningful way. Grief is human, natural, and necessary — but living in it indefinitely is not an act of love. It is a forgetting of life itself.
One day, I too will leave.
And when that moment comes, the last thing I would want is for the people I love to stop living while they are still here. I would not want my absence to become a weight that takes their breath away, or a reason for them to withdraw from life.
If anything, I would want the opposite.
To know that they continue. That they breathe, love, experience, and live fully — not despite my leaving, but in honor of life itself.
Because perhaps the greatest expression of love is not in how deeply we grieve, but in how fully we allow life to keep flowing through us, even after loss.
And in that flow, nothing is truly taken away.
It only changes form.
I also believe that energy recognizes itself.
That what is similar is drawn to what is similar — not by coincidence, but by resonance. The people who enter our lives, especially those who feel instantly familiar, deeply known, as if we have met them somewhere beyond memory — perhaps we have.
Perhaps these are the souls we have traveled with before.
Kindred souls do not meet only once. They find their way back to each other across lifetimes, across forms, across different versions of existence. Not always in the same roles, not always in the same relationships, but with a certain familiarity that cannot be explained logically.
A feeling of recognition without a story.
A closeness without a beginning.
Maybe in one life we are family, in another we are strangers who cross paths for a brief moment, and in another we become something entirely different to each other. And yet, something remains — a thread, subtle but unbroken.
If energy continues, if the soul evolves, if life is a continuous unfolding rather than a single, isolated event — then it would make sense that connection continues as well.
That we meet again.
Not by force, not by promise, but because we are aligned in a way that brings us back into each other’s orbit.
And maybe we do not need to remember.
Maybe it is enough to feel.
To trust that some connections are not accidental, not temporary, not confined to one lifetime.
They are part of something ongoing.
Something that, just like us, is always changing — and always returning.
“We will meet again when we are cats.”
Love,
L.
P.S.:
I was wondering whether to publish this article at all, because I rarely share my private life. What I do share, however, is the value that comes from experience - even when that experience is difficult.
I wrote these words at the beginning of April, during a period of deep reflection. It has taken me some time to decide whether I wanted to share them.
So if not for me, perhaps this is for you. Perhaps it’s for you because you’ll find something in these words that you need right now. Remember, there are no coincidences. If you’re reading this text, it’s because the energy of life has guided you here.
Why? Only you know - because all the answers we seek are already within us.
