How Shall We Live?
Tipping the scale from despair to beauty // plus three book recommendations
This morning as I sat in the pre-writing mode of staring into space, I noticed movement under the book on my windowsill.
I leaned closer to see a spider and a tick in a tug-of-war. For a split second I wondered at how the tick managed to make its way upstairs to the windowsill in my bedroom, but almost immediately that question was replaced with gratitude.
For this slight spider was wrapping the tick in its invisible web.
Lately, I’ve been feeling a slide toward despair.
Between the existential grief of climate change and fear at the current state of politics, there are moments that feel hopeless.
But then I notice something like a spider catching a tick, and I’m reminded of the innumerable tiny ways the world is constantly rebalancing. How one act can save a body from potential Lyme. How one practice — writing at this windowsill — can bring me back to center.
And from this vantage point, the see-saw tips from despair back to beauty.
On that note, I have three passages I want to share with you today:
The first is from In The Wild Light, by Jeff Zentner.
It’s a book I want everyone to read, if only to see an example of a deep-feeling boy who finds his way with the help of grandparents, nature, friendship, and poetry.
“There are days when your heart is so filled with this world’s beauty, it feels like holding too much of something in your hand. Days that taste like wild honey. This is one of them.
When you grow up with ugliness and corruption, you surrender to beauty whenever and wherever you find it. You let it save you, if only for the time it takes for a snowflake to melt on your tongue or for the sun to sink below the horizon in a wildfire of clouds. No matter what else might be troubling your mind. You recognize it for something that can’t be taken from you.”
The second is from The Seed Underground, by
:"How shall we live? As if we believe in the future. As if every one of us is a seed, which as you know is a sacred thing. In my wildest dreams the seeds of every species are talking to me, calling out: in all the bare spots on earth plant us and let us grow. On all the edges, plant seeds."
And the third is from Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer:
“It is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
All of these remind me of the power of beauty, joy, connection, and living into possibility.
Despair paralyzes us into giving up. Into thinking it’s no use.
Despair says: resign yourself, the forces outside are too powerful for you.
Despair says: you can do nothing.
Beauty entices us to act. To wonder. To engage with curiosity. And that opens us. It’s what life springs from.
Beauty says: You are not alone.
Beauty says: You can plant seeds. You can show up at the potluck with a fresh salad. You can do your part and know, just as the morning chorus of birds gives way to evening crickets, summer’s song needs us all, and you, too, have a voice to lift.⠀
Yes, some days I still wake with anxiety and worry already puckering in my chest. I used to feel consigned to them, as if it were simply the fact of living in this world. But then I breathe deeply. I see the sunrise. The birds sing. Daylight extends.
And I remember, for the umpteenth time, this world is alive and there is beauty everywhere, shaking us awake.
And I remember I am part of this world, part of the beauty, and it's time to plant seeds.
Today the seeds are words.
These words, inviting you to go outside and remember your wholeness.
How our wholeness depends on each other, on living systems of water, land, air, and fire. How you can weave a web of beauty. How your weaving might save someone.
This is lovely. It really is those teeny tiny moments that ground us. Sometimes it’s hard to slow down and pay attention to them, but it’s so important
Thank you so much for this gem!