When all the world comes crowding in
the firehose of bad news spewing into every waking moment
The underground torrent of generational trauma
threatening to burst its reservoirs
already flooding your subconscious

Consider
how a tree holds space
its limbs dancing to the wind’s onslaught
creating pockets of calm within its leaves and boughs

Or the sea grasses
moving, swaying, sashaying with the tide
the waves crash yet the grasses shelter
small, unmoored creatures
in folds of shimmering weightlessness

Or the moon, a pool of stillness
atching the eye of many an earthling
scuttling about a teeming surface
holding each one in a gentle lunar embrace

So you, too, can learn
to dance, bend, pause, shift your weight
to reflect the light you’ve been given
to try a new posture
to protect what is tender and unfolding

You can learn
to be still

Keep your margins open
your mind clear
your evenings free
of dings and rings and blinking screens

A different time exists beyond
the ever-urgent feed
the endless scroll of doom

Time you protect
space you hold
when you say
No.
Not now.

We create our own sanctuaries
cities, neighborhoods, churches, temples, mosques
hearths and kitchen tables
where the violence rampant in high places
has no foothold

Now
is time
for something holy
something spacious
a deeper magic

Whatever is happening in the digital ether
has no weight compared to now
This moment
This breath
These relationships
This eternal present

(Republished with permission)