What sustains you in collective loss and anxiety?

If you are not exhausted by months of Covid, the upcoming US election, and the uncertainty and tumult that has visited our world, then you are among the few. What sustains you and replenishes you in this time of collective loss and uncertainty?

The answer, of course, is mostly known. But how often do we pause long enough to hear the voice inside, and the answer that is waiting? I make an effort to begin the day by reminding myself to wake up slowly, to extend the time between waking and sleeping. I just don’t let myself get out of bed with my mind racing ahead like it wants to … and there is plenty of time for screens later. There is an implosion of “newspaper truth,” which by its nature needs to be dramatic or dismal to get our attention. My only hope is to begin by extending the morning quiet. Just this morning, in the wee hours, the full blue moon got me out of bed, and outside in it. What a comfort she is in her constancy and change, unceasingly waning and waxing, departing and returning, from total darkness to lambent light. Millions and countless millions of years of gliding across the night, witnessing every kind of disaster and miracle. I feel certain we all have a moon inside — a witness, something that returns and brightens after every darkest night.

Hundreds of years ago, Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his journal on the necessity of slowing down, gazing … looking long enough at something until that something itself becomes alive. Any of you who have beheld the object you are drawing long enough know what I am talking about. Stones, apples, lamp posts and books — all things have their presences.