Believe. Even Now.

March 1, 2026

Sunrise, February 25, 2026

I want to write about ducks. I try very hard to keep this newsletter an oasis of peace and harmony. And. Like most of you, I woke up to the news this morning (Saturday) that we have started yet another war.

I think this female scaup feels about the same way I do.

I did what I do with anything that challenges me - I took it out to the lake. I had expected to wake to clear skies, with the forecasts for rain and other forms of precipitation not set to start until tomorrow. Instead, there was lightning to the south and the threat of rain where I was standing.

I wanted to climb under my bed and maybe wait it out a few years, but like the ducks, I have to come back up for air.

I paced near the dock, I watched the clouds moving through, and wondered if the sun would manage to sneak underneath. When I saw the pink make its way up on the edge of the clouds, it lifted my spirits.

The light finds a way in on a stormy morning.

About that time, a young couple that didn’t speak much English handed me a phone with the words, “Will you take our picture?” Of course I did, and as I looked and listened to the young couple, I guessed they might be Middle Eastern. I wondered how they were feeling this morning, and I was glad I could do this one, tiny, kind thing.

Looking west, just before sunrise, February 28, 2026.

I turned around and saw that the incoming clouds were lit up in pink. By the time I walked across the parking lot to the back cove, the clouds were nearly on top of me. I felt the power in those clouds and reminded myself that something larger is still at work, no matter how it appears.

Even the wide lens couldn’t capture the size of these clouds.

Then, I saw the rainbow appear beneath the clouds. I felt a lightning bolt of elation go through my body. I heard the words, “Believe. Even now. Believe.”

A message written in starlight.

I watched the rainbow spread across the clouds and then disappear a few minutes later. “Believe. Even now. Believe.” Writing it now, I find tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. The compassionate intelligence of the universe knew exactly what I needed today and provided it in a way that I could pass it along to others.

I don’t know how it is that we will turn the tide of violence and hatred, but I know it will not be by going to war. I think the singing resistance has the right idea. With voices rather than weapons, we must bring harmony back to the world.

Mallards in harmony.

I do think we need a new word, though - what you resist persists. I think those who are trying to turn back the clock to an era when they, as white men of means, felt a sense of control, are actually the resistance. I think we must be the harmonizers. The ones who bring order to disorder and coherence to chaos.

There is coherence in beauty. (Great look at the wing of a greater scaup with that stripe all the way to the edge.)

I realized this morning that all of the physical symptoms I am dealing with now appeared around the time of the 2024 election. There is a heightened level of stress and distress that sits below my consciousness every day. I see symptoms spike when other stressors occur, but that is because the baseline is elevated. This happened once before…from 2016-2021.

It would be nice, sometimes, to be able to fly away. But that approach hasn’t worked for me!

For several years, I’ve been focused on learning how to be in relationship with my body, how to be with uncomfortable feelings, and to help those energies move through. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time, but it’s only in the last few months that I’ve actually been doing it.

You have to go all in to find the fish.

In all this time, I thought the goal was to get rid of that discordant energy, to move it out of my energy field. In QiGong they will talk about releasing that energy to the earth to be recycled, but it has always niggled at me that we are already doing that and the earth is overrun with our waste.

Common merganser pointing the way?

Now I’m finally understanding that the goal isn’t to get rid of it, but rather to harmonize it, bring it back “in tune” with health, and to reclaim that energy. That energy is my internal power, and I need it.

We need that internal power to fly.

I’m also understanding this is not so much something I do, as something I hold space and allow. Holding that space means finding ways to regulate my nervous system and send signals of safety when the fear alarms are going off in my body, like they are today.

Fear is sneaky, just like diving ducks.

I’m still learning. Today is a challenging day. I often need to find regulation outside of myself. Sometimes that comes from other people, sometimes that comes from the blessed birds, sometimes the lake herself will hold me. Every once in a while, the message is delivered in the sky.

Many days I just need a place to land.

I will keep trying to harmonize the energies within me so I can bring harmony to the world around me. Meanwhile, thank the heavens there are birds.

Bluebird of harmony