Finding A Path in the Dark

trail signs and companions help

Trail signs in the woods

I have an explanation for today's post, arriving late and different.

I am under the influence of an On Being project created by Krista Tippett and presented on The On Being Project. For seven weeks I have been encouraged and challenged by her conversations with six of her "live human signposts" of "muscular hope"-adrienne maree brown, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ocean Vuong, Joanna Macy, Joy Harjo, and Ross Gay.

It is a relief to find a path forward with trail signs and encouragement, because each day the woods seem darker, as dark as the windows of the black Explorers that cruise our neighborhoods, looking for prey— human prey— to boost their dark numbers. I know these times are not darker than the past, but they are new to me. Much of what I naively thought permanent is shattering or melting before my eyes. I know my hope needs stronger sinews to hold onto the light I trust is still there.

I'm making my way through the pondering and beginning to practice, welcoming words and voices that can carry vision to me, new perspectives of time and expectation. You can download the journal, "Hope, Imagination, and Remaking the World, a Journal for Pondering and Practicing" and follow seven weeks posts and interviews at On Pause.

Practice Delight

The final post of the series was with Ross Gay, a poet, teacher and community gardener, called Practice Delight. He undertook a quest to find and note 'delight' every day for a year and wrote a book of poetic essays called "The Book of Delights.” Early in the practice he realized that "...one of the things that surprised me was how quickly the study of delight made delight more evident. That was really quick." He called it developing a 'delight radar" ¹

This past week I gave the practice a try, I was not as adept at it as I thought I would be, but I will keep practicing. I want to take more notice of the other people around me and have greater faith in my fellow humans. Delight, like joy, is something that is there for the noticing, Ross Gay describes it this way:

"Adult joy knows that suffering and loss always live close by life and love. And that knowledge brings what is good and joyful all the more into relief.”²

Unsplash-Jeff Siepman and Mohamad B

Here are my notations and thoughts about delights during this past week:

• Sunday: I took my very old, almost black bananas and baked moist banana bread, a perfect crusted top, one of those cooking alchemies where the dross turns to gold. I ate one slice, warm with butter and gave the rest away.

• Monday: Visited my sister who lives about two hours away to celebrate our birthdays. My sister is the last person in my life who remembers the day I was born and I love to hear her tell me the story of me being born on Mother's Day and how much she enjoyed telling everyone about it.

• Tuesday: I watched multiple monarch butterflies chasing each other and visiting the milkweed and checked on the caterpillars. Some have been disappearing, but I haven't seen any chrysalises. This has been a daily delight, unfolding new.

• Wednesday: I saw two hummingbirds finally stop arguing about the new feeder in the front yard, sit next to each other and feed.

• Thursday: On a Rose Garden shift at The Huntington, a visitor wanted to smell his favorite rose that he had lost in the Eaton fire. I showed him where it was and there was a perfect bloom, fresh and partially open. He inhaled that comforting scent and told me about his mother's rose garden and his introduction to roses. He leaned in for one more sniff and moved on. Now he knows where to find it and I hope he has a new rose of his own soon.

• Friday: While driving, I heard my neighbor's voice on the local NPR radio station sharing about his longtime and continued support of the station during a fund drive after the Congress withdrew funding. It was the first time I knew one of the people making the announcements. Local is good.

Be encouraged, be hopeful there are ways through these difficult times, and there will be others on the path with us.

Krista Tippett closes the journal with these thoughts:

"Enough of us see that we

have a world to remake.

We want to meet what is

hard and hurting.

We want to rise to what is

beautiful and life-giving.

We want to do that where

we live, and we want to do it

walking alongside others.³

1. From On Being with Krista Tippett: Ross Gay — Hope Portal, Episode 7, Jul 10, 2025

2. Ibid

3. Tippett, Krista, "Hope, Imagination, and Remaking the World, a Journal for Pondering and Practicing". Hope Portal.

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