PEBBLE
The more light you allow within you,
the brighter the world you live in will be.
~Shakti Gawain, shared by Pete in Colorado
BOULDER
The light you seek is not waiting somewhere else. It already lives in you. In your capacity to begin again, to forgive a little more, to open when it would be easier to close. As time passes and things happen, may you trust that something wise is moving you forward, even when you cannot yet see the path.
~Jack Kornfield (lightly edited), shared by Kelsey in Fond du Lac, WI
PONDER
I was chatting with a group of people the other day and they were talking about how pretty much everyone they knew was struggling. I was only half-joking when I replied, “You wanna know my theory? We all lived through a friggin’ global pandemic, and most of us still desperately need a year or three of vacation and another year or three of therapy so we can recover from that hot mess.”
It’s hard for me to believe that this week marks six years since things started getting really weird and really strange, really fast. Even though the pandemic was officially declared over in May 2023, a combination of exhaustion, polarization, and the reality that some people were still getting sick meant that we never got to a point where we felt we could throw a party and scream, “WE MADE IT!”
It’s true there were some wonderful ways we did indeed come together to help each other out — do you remember all those folks who started sewing masks, and the daily cheering for frontline workers that took place in larger cities like New York? Unfortunately, the already frayed lines of communication and connection across the political divide have been stretched — and in some places, torn.
When will things get better? And how?
I don’t know the answer to the first question, but I do have some ideas about the second one, because the world gets better every single time one of us acts on our instincts to find the light, spread the light, and whenever possible to be the light for others. Getting involved in the causes you care about really does make a difference. So does writing a simple two-line review for a business you believe in. The big stuff matters; the small stuff matters; you matter.
If you’ve been struggling lately, I humbly offer you this light. It’s a simple and simply stunning performance by singer Melanie DeMore and pianist Julie Wolf of a song called Sending you Light:
I am sending you Light
To heal you, to hold you
I am sending you Light
To hold you in love
Peace,
Paul
P.S. My friend Colene found a similarly stirring choral version on Spotify.