Loving the flowers (a pause)

The News: Everything is Bad

The Poet: Okay, and what if we still fall in love with the moon and learn something from the flowers?

Nikita Gill (poet)

It’s time for a pause. The news is bad, but the daffodils are popping through, the thorny branches on the flowering quince are bursting into delicate bloom, and the plum trees are beginning their march toward the purple fruit they will bear five months from now.

In the middle of the terribleness, beauty has broken through.

Over the last two months, I’ve been on an inquiry into how we stay sane when the world is not—so we can each contribute in our ways and not let the abuses of the powerful diminish our spirits.

In When the World Shakes Get Grounded, I shared my sensing of a recent earthquake, and how we have to find our grounding in the seismic changes happening today.

In Finding Your Role in the Performance of Our Lifetime, I discussed change as an ensemble performance where we each have to find our own roles.

In The DUNNO card—Your Permission to Not Know, I admitted how hard it is to want to understand what is going on—and what a relief it can be not to have to know.

For In Case of Catastrophe—Calm I explored how in high seas the calm ones can help save the ship (thanks to Thich Nhat Hanh for the image).

In Be Subversive SMILE (and then Act), I wrote about the importance of sharing joy and the power of smiling, even in dark times.

In Balance Out—Don’t Tune Out I wrote about the challenges of staying informed without going down with the news.

 

I hope my words can send you out onto a path of beauty and more calm. At the end of the day, the news may still be bad, but the moon can still inspire our dreams.