It is early morning on an ordinary Monday. I’m awake, and feeling as if I’d slept in, but that’s more to do with the end of Daylight Savings Time than anything else. I got up and dressed and left the house without waking anyone, as far as I could tell. I reached the trailhead before daybreak and got to my halfway point before sunrise. The sky is just barely showing any hint of daylight yet-to-come.
It can sometimes feel as if my choices are very limited, or potentially even that I “have no choice” in some moment of stress or urgency. That’s rarely true. Just this morning, getting to this ordinary location for an everyday experience that is quite commonplace for me, I made many choices. Fleece or cardigan? Put my boots on while seated on the edge of the bed, or carry them down the hall and put them on right before I leave? Hair pulled back, worn in a twist, or loose? Grab a yogurt drink or a bottle of water on my way out? Do I need to stop for gas? Most of these choices happened almost in the background, requiring very little of my attention. They’re still choices.
I smile to myself in the darkness. I’m okay with my choices so far, today. If I weren’t, I could begin again, and walk a different path (literally or metaphorically). The small everyday choices may seem insignificant, but they say something about my values, and how well I do (or don’t) live them. That’s information worth having. It can be hard to correct the path we walk, if we don’t notice we’ve stepped off that path.
A sprinkling of rain begins to fall. I can continue on, until I reach the parking lot, or I can turn back. In this instance, the choice won’t be about distance; it’s about the same either way. 😂 I laugh and pull my tightly folded rain poncho out of my pocket, and pull it over my head. It was a smart choice to bring it, I think to myself. Then the rain stops, making it completely irrelevant. It rained only long enough to make my poncho too wet to shove back in my pocket. I chuckle to myself. Sometimes choices do work out that way. I don’t really mind being unnecessarily prepared. It’s far better than being unprepared.
I think about the day ahead. Am I prepared? Ready to make choices? Ready to do the many verbs awaiting me further up life’s path? I don’t know… I’m at least ready to begin. Again.
It starts to sprinkle again, and I get to my feet, ready to walk on. Prepared.
It is morning. Daybreak seems to come early, but it’s only the end of Daylight Savings Time here in the US. In terms of reality and the nature of time, or the timing of various celestial events, nothing actually changed. I walked the trail in the gloom as daybreak came, wrapped in autumn fog on the marsh, and grateful for my warm sweater and the soft fuzzy fleece I threw on over that.
Halfway to somewhere.
The trees form from the mist as I approach them. The morning is spooky and magical, and very quiet. I don’t hear any traffic on the nearby highway, only my footsteps and my breath. I keep walking, heading for my halfway point, and a moment to pause, meditate, and watch the dawn become a new day, before walking on down the trail and out of the fog.
At my halfway point, I stop. I sit. I write. I think. I observe. As day brightens, I see a small cluster of shapes out at the edge of the meadow. Deer. I think it’s likely to be the same small herd I often see here, when I walk this trail. Two mature does resting in the tall grass, partially hidden, and their young born this year, already losing their spots, are accompanied by a buck who stands alert and watchful a short distance away. He seems less concerned with me than whatever may be unseen in the trees beyond the meadow. I watch quietly. Color slowly becomes part of the view, as daylight begins to brighten the meadow and marsh. I see fall colors on the trees, now. The buck raises his head and changes his posture. Something has his attention, and his movement communicates something to his family. They rise from their resting place and join him, as he walks away. They move along quickly, quietly, and disappear into the fog.
I sit where I am, perched on this fence rail, awhile longer. I’m in no hurry. There is, sadly, war going on in the world, and where there is no clearly defined war going on, there may be conflict with less clearly defined sides. In both cases, the outcome for many innocent noncombatants is unchanged: violence, chaos, trauma, suffering, and possibly death. I sigh quietly. Humanity could already be beyond warfare if we chose to put it aside as an artifact of more primitive times. War is ugly, destructive, and there are no actual winners besides those who profit from it. Everyone else loses. War has no positive outcome that could not be more easily obtained (with greater value) without bloodshed. We’re pretty fucking stupid about some shit, as creatures go.
I breathe, exhale, and relax, and pull my awareness back to this moment, here, in the middle of this meadow, alongside the foggy autumn marsh on a November morning at dawn. There is no war, no conflict, here. Just the quiet and the fog, and the steadfast oaks standing nearby, partially obscured by the fog. It feels rather as if anything could be out there in the mist, waiting to be discovered. I swing my feet contentedly, breathing the chilly autumn air, filling my lungs with it, and releasing my wartime worries into the fog with each exhalation.
I remind myself to make self-care a priority.
I spend a few minutes thinking about the day ahead. There is housekeeping to do, later. I think about my untidy personal space at home. It is my office, my studio, my meditation space, and my getaway when I need a quiet moment. The relative orderliness there (or lack of it) often signals my general stress level and state of emotional health. It’s a bit less tidy than I’d ideally like, right now, and it reflects my background stress level pretty accurately. Maybe today I’ll spend some time sorting that out? I know I’ll feel better once I do, that’s just real (and a tiny bit funny).
I sigh as I get to my feet. I take a big deep breath of the cold morning air on the marsh and look up the trail where it disappears into the fog, so mysterious, so promising. I glance at the time. Just as I thought – it’s time to begin again. 😁
I woke later than usual. It was almost 05:00 when I woke. I felt rested and positively merry. I dressed to head out for my morning trek down the marsh trail that circles the nature park.
As I checked the weather, and the time, I see I’ve got a message from my beloved Traveling Partner. The love and concern in his words is clear. He suggests I keep my walk short, maybe local, and proposes I maybe stay home entirely and get my miles on the elliptical, while watching a favorite show. He proposes that we could do something together, later, an idea that appeals to me. I feel loved. I sit with that feeling for a moment, letting it fill my consciousness.
The idea of a shorter walk and better self-care is a tempting idea, for sure, I admit. I really like being out on the trail, though, enjoying the short quiet interval of solitude… and my walks at the nature park put me nearby a favorite grocery store, and I generally stop there after my walk on a Saturday morning… The temperature is mild… I head out, remembering my commitment to one of the grocery checkers to share some items my Traveling Partner made, and deciding to keep my walk short, any way.
The drive to the nature park was quiet. No traffic. I enjoyed it, smiling to myself as I drove with my thoughts, grateful for my loving partner who cares about my well-being, and for the lovely morning. Before I reach the nature park, it begins to rain, first just a sprinkle, then as I reach the trailhead parking, a proper steady rain. I grimace, and laugh, betting my Traveling Partner had checked the weather report more closely than I had.
Now I sit, waiting for a break in the rain. I’m unbothered and relaxed. Hadn’t I already decided to make my walk a shorter one, anyway? No stress. No agitation. Just change. I breathe, exhale, and relax, listening to the rain on the roof of the car.
At its heart, resilience is simply that ability to bounce back in the face of change, uncertainty, emotional disregulation, or even trauma. Resilience needs development, as with things like muscular strength. Specific practices build resilience. Meditation, as a practice, helps build resilience. The practice of “taking in the good” is another that directly builds resilience. Forgiveness, as a practice, is another that contributes to resilience, by limiting how long our hurt feelings or injuries inflicted by another can dominate our thoughts. Practicing non-attachment and embracing related ideas such as impermanence, sufficiency, and building depth and breadth into our perspective on life, generally, are helpful for building resilience.
Resilience let’s us bounce back and carry on, without becoming mired in our pain, sorrow, or anger. Resilience is that quality that gets us quickly past a difficult moment, and on to enjoying the next. Well-established resilience, over time, may become the difference between having some troubling mental health episode or meltdown, and simply acknowledging a difficult experience, dealing with it, and moving on with things calmly. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me.
…So I practice…
Sometimes, I fall short of my commitment to one practice or another, but that’s also why I see such things as practices in the first place, instead of tasks to be checked off as completed, or skills to be mastered. Mastery is inconsequential. Practice is ongoing. It is a doing that doesn’t really finish. Each practice with real world value in my lived experience becomes a lifestyle change, over time. Each practice becomes part of my routine, and part of who I am. The result? I am more resilient. It becomes a character trait, and in that regard, it also becomes easier to maintain. Such results don’t mean no practice is required, just that the effort and will involved in the practice itself is greatly reduced. Sometimes, though, I still find myself not practicing some practice or other, through circumstances or forgetting. I’m human.
… I just begin again, and get back to practicing…
The rain stops, but it’s not yet daylight, and I’m not in a hurry. There’s no need to rush my walk, or hurry home to barge in on my beloved’s quiet time over his coffee first thing. I sit quietly a little longer. Daybreak soon, and I’ll walk the short loop, and watch the sunrise – then, I’ll begin again.
I walked through the early morning darkness alone with my thoughts. It’s a chilly autumn morning, and I’m glad I wore a heavy sweater. I am thinking about a recent demonstration that I found to illustrate a lasting concern I’ve had for awhile now. I’m not alone with this, a lot of people are concerned, though little is likely to be done.
…No, I don’t mean the wildly popular, well-attended, nationwide No Kings demonstrations over the weekend. Powerfully illustrative, no doubt, but not the thing on my mind. This other is… bigger. Deeper. Impacts more of the global society of humanity, and may be a warning of worse to come – things we’re not prepared for.
From Downdetector, around midmorning Pacific time.
I’m thinking about the AWS outage, yesterday. So many people and businesses now store data on, use services hosted by, or route traffic through AWS that the outage (which lasted many hours and disrupted many businesses and financial institutions) ground business to a halt in many places. A broad variety of services stopped operating. Companies whose support teams use browser-based digital communication tools suddenly couldn’t support the customer inquiries that were queuing up. Teams and individuals couldn’t get work done. Frustrated consumers unaware that this or that business now exclusively uses AWS for hosting and data storage became unable to function in the 21st century world of online everything.
Pretty wild that in such circumstances people so easily find themselves halted. Really? Do something else. Something real. Read a book. Go for a walk. Get some chores done. Leave the chaos to the engineers and devs who got this hot potato dropped into their laps in the wee hours, and get on with your actual life, damn. “Shit’s down, bitches! Let’s go outside.”
I laugh now, but I’m also concerned. Don’t we all have more to do in the real spaces of the actual physical world than anything online? Aren’t the precious few mortal moments we have in these finite lives worth more attention from us? Do we really “need” an online app to meditate? To read? To enjoy a coffee with a friend? To walk a lovely trail on an autumn morning? We are, perhaps, overly dependent on digital bullshit.
Before dawn, darkness and distant light.
I walked with my thoughts, and took a seat in the darkness, shortly before daybreak, to write and meditate. Nice morning. I’m not so exhausted, today. I definitely needed some rest, and it was a good choice to go to bed early last night. I woke ahead of my alarm this morning to the soft sound of my Traveling Partner calling out to me, “Baby?”, as if checking whether I was awake, or trying to get my attention. The house was dark and quiet and there was no sign my beloved was actually awake, at all. Probably just an “exploding head” sort of dream, although of a very gentle sort. Not uncommon, for me. These no longer cause me any stress; it’s just a dream.
Being awake, I got up and started the day, and here I am.
I breathe, exhale, and relax. Life. The autumn air is chilly and fresh. There is a mist clinging to the ground in the low places. The world is quiet, at least right here. Right here, now, I am indifferent to whether any given tech platform or app works, and I don’t much care about the clown show of American politics. I’m just a woman on a trail, on an autumn morning before sunrise. It is an experience that needs no app, and no connectivity. Fine by me. 😂
… What would you do if it all crashed, and didn’t come back? If you lost the Internet, could you still reach the people who truly matter to you? Would you get enough information about the goings on in your world to get by and live well? Would you be able to continue to do the job you do now, or would it suddenly be of no use or consequence at all? Would you easily entertain yourself with conversation, books on paper, jam sessions with neighbors, and impromptu block parties, or would you find yourself stalled, bored, and unable to function? Are you wholly dependent on a tech toy that became a tool, and is now a crutch? Who are you without your digital profile?
I sit here feeling okay, myself. My Dad didn’t have much trust in computer systems, software, and “helpful” technology. He taught us to fish, to hunt, to garden, to raise small livestock and make use of the resulting resources. He handed down recipes, and skills. He taught us a lot of useful things, long before the Internet was a convenience or a concern. I’m grateful. The Army taught me more. Life taught me still more after that. I mostly don’t care when or whether the Internet or some particular app or platform is down. I’ve got books. 😂
A frown passes over my face with a chill breeze. Life would be hard without shelter. Without power, heat, and potable water… disasters come in a lot of sizes. It could have been worse than an AWS outage, for sure. I think about Gaza, and Ukraine. It could be so much worse. Genocide. Warfare. Bombs. Earthquakes. Disease outbreaks. Disaster can strike anywhere, and takes many forms. Am I prepared? Are you?
I sigh to myself. Human primates make so much shit more complicated than it has to be… mostly over greed, or seeking power. Gross. Do better, humanity, your survival probably depends on it.
Daybreak comes, and I get to my feet. It’s time to begin again. I’ve got this trail ahead of me, and a destination in mind. All that remains is to begin.
I got to the trailhead early. Before the sun. Before dawn. Before daybreak. In the chilly darkness of an autumn morning, a mist gathers, moving up from the lowlands of the marsh and the riverbank. A slim crescent moon rises, looking like a single half-closed eye in watchful meditation, above the mist.
Predawn darkness at the trailhead.
It is a good time for thinking and for meditation. As the moon rises, I reflect on useful ideas I have picked up along my journey, each uniquely worthy of guiding me on my way, like sign posts, or streetlights. I take a moment to jot them down, carefully putting them in alphabetical order for no particular reason.
Amor Fati is, for me, a useful idea in spite of my lack of conviction with regard to the possibility that anything at all is or is not “fated” to be as it is. For me it carries a sense of recognizing that circumstances are what they are in some moment, and allowing (encouraging) a certain sense of acceptance, generally, and living within an accepting context, on life’s journey. I don’t carry any sense that I am “doomed” to some particular outcome – change is – only that even in the midst of change, acceptance can provide a comfortable foundation to rest upon, before beginning again.
Gnothi Seaton – know thyself – an idea with so much history behind it, it’s hard to call it an eye-opening realization. Seriously, though? How can we change who we are, if we don’t know who we are? How can we grow to become the person we most want to be, if we don’t know who that even is? How can we live our values, if we don’t have a clear understanding of what we do value?
Gratitude as a practice has become incredibly important to me. It’s one of several practices I practice that is built on a simple idea. In this case, the simple idea is that gratitude tends to crowd out anger and similar negative emotions, creating a more positive experience of life, even in stressful times. Gratitude helps build emotional resilience and reframes difficult experiences in terms that tend to promote peace, compassion, and understanding. Gratitude also feels good and satisfies something within me.
Ichi-go Ichi-e is the unrepeatable, unique nature of each precious finite moment, and is a particularly powerful idea for me. Each singular moment of our mortal lifetime is also another opportunity to begin again, to do better, and to be more present.
Impermanence is one of those ideas that has layers of meaning and usefulness. I meditate on impermanence often. Change is. However reliably certain some condition or experience seems, change itself is more reliable and more certain. We are mortal creatures, living our short lives in a finite universe of constant change. Impermanence is the sort of idea that can cause a person tremendous anxiety – or heal it, depending, I suppose, on how it it viewed, and whether it is accepted.
Memento Mori is an interesting idea, a reflection on mortality, a reminder that our time is brief, and that our mortal life will inevitably end. There is (as of 2025) no escaping death. Will the life we choose to live be worth our efforts? Will we be remembered – and for what? Life itself is characterized by impermanence, and our journey is the only destination we have, as the grains of the sands of time trickle through the hourglass. Even knowing that – maybe especially knowing that – we live and choose and grow and continue one day after the next, until the days run out. Which they definitely will.
Non-attachment, like several of these ideas, is associated with Buddhism, and other religions that value contemplative and meditative practices. It is a caution against clinging to expectations, desires, or worldly things. It is the face of a coin for which impermanence is the reverse. When we embrace change and refrain from clinging to some specific outcome, we free ourselves from a lot of drama, sorrow, struggle, and emotional pain. It goes hand in hand with ideas like “letting small shit stay small” and walking away from unpleasant (or damaging) people or experiences.
Vita Contemplativa is the inverse of Vita Activa (also a useful idea, but sadly perverted in a busy modern world, becoming “grind culture” and abusive overfocus on work to the detriment of self). The 21st century philosopher Byung-Chul Han wrote a book by this title, in praise of inactivity as a vital function of living well. Turns out, we’re so incredibly bad at living a contemplative life, or even at incorporating contemplation, self-reflection, and meditation into our daily lives that I couldn’t find a single really good source of information to link for this one, other than to Byung-Chul Han’s book. We put a lot more emphasis on productive action in life and society, even to the point of illness, chaos, and destruction. We over value momentum and ambition, and decry thoughtful reflection as”lazy” or a “waste of time “, and tend to punish the daydreamers and peace seekers among us. That’s pretty sad, actually.
A new day, well-suited to thinking thoughts and walking in solitude.
Day comes. The mist envelopes me on the marsh trail. I am alone with my thoughts, wrapped in contentment. I let the useful ideas stack up, layers of self-reflection, practices, and incremental changes over time. I can easily say I am in better place as a human being than I was 15 years ago. Strange to see the journey behind me in such clear terms, illuminated by a handful of useful ideas.
The time I’ve spent along the way really reflecting on where I’ve been and where I’m going – if I even know – has never been “wasted time”. Some of my most precious moments have been spent in contemplation. Meditation has proven itself as a powerful healing practice (for me). I didn’t know it would be, when I set off down this path…
… And it’s time, again, still, and already, to begin again. I don’t know where I’m going, not really, but I’m definitely getting there. The journey is the destination.
Evening Light 