Today, wherever you are and however you are
whether you breathe deep or shallow, try to breathe the best you can as you read this.

We are looking through the portal beyond today. We do not know and cannot know what happens next. Yet, despite the clench of fear or anxiety, whether angry or hopeless, we look to history and to nations across the globe to witness where some of the most powerful voices are: Women… and men… in fact some of the most oppressed, who refuse to be silenced.

They are survivors who have the guts to believe in themselves and one another and speak, who continue as mothers, fathers, caregivers, artists, workers, unhoused, imprisoned, alone or apart—ordinary people who are poor or are privileged, all colors, all political affiliations, all religions or no religion, who live under unspeakable circumstances, who choose to live and love and support one another.

We too have a choice even when things seem impossible.
We too can open the heart to courage and to the possibility of that other response: the fierce brilliance of kindness, the relentless resistance of joy in the midst of sorrow, even wherever or however we are.

Today, I invite you to attend to what is unsettled in your heart—to tend to something even if it is an animal, a plant, or a person besides yourself.
Allow what may remain unfinished and unresolved, and actually make room for suffering...
and for the possibility of light inside your own powerful reservoir that has got you to today.
This is the time we are in. Breathe shallow or breathe deep.

You are not alone.