Humans have made up a list of what defines a living entity: its ability to grow, reproduce, metabolize, respond to stimuli, and adapt to the environment. Living entities, made up of cells, exhibit organization and complexity, they possess genetic material, allowing for hereditary transmission of traits and variation over generations.
Although there is large evidence that life could have arisen from rocks, entities such as minerals, crystals, or volcanoes are not considered living entities. One of the differences between the two types of existences might be in the way we tell the story, as Judith Butler says: “there is no body prior to the discourses through which it emerges”. Another big difference is the scale through which we study the matter, focusing on the shorter life span of living entities, compared to deep time explored in rocks and mountains.
What we call non living matter is constantly transversing living matter, existing alongside, inside and outside living organisms. What you see on these drawings are processes, trajectories of sodium, chlorine, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms among others. These elements are part of neverending complex unfoldings and exchanges, being part of the human body, the earth's crust, and cosmic bodies. Molecules that change from geometric forms to other geometric forms. Atomically there is no life. Atomically there are processes, phenomena, cycles.