find ourselves in clean places, silent places where we hear the sound of the wind, which is the breath of the planet. The exchange with the outside world, the essence of breathing, is an instinct expressed in natural rhythms we notice only in unusual moments, that is, when discomfort interrupts the normal course, and our attention focuses on the details of such an apparently automatic and simple activity. We then reflect that each of us is given a limited number of breaths and that breathing had its beginning in a separation, that of the mother from her creature. It also ends in a separation, our separation from the world. Separation has connotations of pain, but it is necessary to be independent and free, and hence to communicate. Only through separation can we build our individuality, and only in freedom can a real exchange between people take place. Every time events, caused by the environment, illness or the psyche, alter the balance between our body and the air, we have very unpleasant, sometimes dramatic, sensations. These sensations involve our being in its vital functioning and disturb the psyche to the point of causing pathologies. "Gasping for air" is what we instinctively do when things oppress us, when we feel the threat of suffocation, of paralysing pain. And women, how do they manage breathing? Is there a difference between women and men in their relationship to air? Women are often heard to refer to their breathing difficulties: a common phrase is "I’m in need of air", or, referring to an oppressive woman, a frequently used expression is, "She doesn’t let you breathe". Obviously, communication with the world and others leads to the complex area of liberty and autonomy women, in their social and personal lives, are not always able to free themselves from their conditioning and express their own identity. For this reason a woman can feel caught in a trap or tend not to leave herself space. Since the final decades of the last century, both social and personal relationships have changed so much, at least in the west, that the "rules" of behaviour have been turned upside down. In social and work settings women have had to accept a competitive system that has little to do with their way of being and some have become more aggressive than males. Both the emotional and home life follow unnatural rhythms and our private sphere no longer has precise limits, having expanded to merge with our social life. Life is in danger of becoming a theatre, where one must be believable in playing a role, where women may be faced with difficulty and feel anxious, where at times they do not believe in themselves and are scared of their own abilities, almost as if afraid of leaving the nest and taking to the air. To breathe, to feel the passing of time, to move through space while keeping a space for oneself is sometimes very difficult. Our constant search for the meditative wisdom of other cultures is not casual, we aspire to regain the awareness of the "inside self" and "external self". The sense of space derived from freedom is, in effect, a cultural phenomenon. Through this, women have learnt to overcome their fears and feelings of guilt and have discovered a considerable talent for dealing with complexities, perseverance in pursuing their objectives and a sense of proportion. They never entirely give up their personal life or lose sight of the important things in daily living. There are parts of the world where "breathing" is denied to women and they are deprived of the right to communicate. A woman who lives under a burqa breathes her own recycled breath, her own vital lymph, instead of pure air. She is deprived of that element of the physis, which permits a proper exchange with the external, and she is condemned to communicate with herself or with an authoritarian world. Her condition radically disturbs her psychosomatic relationship with her environment and develops a cruel insecurity, it confuses her sense of self with her sense of "other", making an open rebellion impossible and favouring an unhealthy affection for the object that imprisons her. Yet many Afghan women have been able to make their voice heard. e PHILOSOPHICAL INTRODUCTION
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