In 1462, a monk arrived in Florence carrying a manuscript. It had been acquired in Macedonia by agents of Cosimo de Medici — the wealthiest man in Europe and an obsessive collector of ancient texts. Cosimo was in his seventies, dying, and he had been waiting a long time for something like this. He instructed his court philosopher, Marsilio Ficino, to set aside his translation of Plato’s complete works and begin on this manuscript immediately.
For thousands of years, the Inuit people of Greenland have understood what modern science is rediscovering: everything is connected by an invisible life force that animates all existence. They call it Sila—the breath of life, the wind, the weather, the consciousness that pervades everything. Similar to Prana, Qi, and Mana, Sila teaches that your breath connects you to all beings, that weather and consciousness intertwine, and that the sacred is immediate and present in every moment.