One of the ways I am trying to keep my sanity now is by walking. Preferably during the time when the daylight is slowly fading into dusk and the traffic noise recedes, giving place to the chorus of insects and birds.
I am trying to take a single picture during every walk, to remind myself that time is passing and that despite everything I am alive on the living earth.

The picture I took yesterday somehow became a solace, so I thought I’d share it. Maybe, you will feel it too: the soft, earthy smell of rotting wood and of the fungus decomposing it, the softness of soil after two days of heavy rains, and the warmth of the air. And this beautiful, intricate web woven over the dark cavity of the dying tree.

The tree is dying, but it is not dead. Instead, it is slowly transforming, becoming a different thing, a multitude of different things: a home, a shelter, a food, a soil. The tree is teaching me that grieving and loving and living are all pretty much the same thing. It teaches me that “we came from dust and we shall return to dust” is not a threat, but a promise. It teaches me that we make so much more sense and more senses in connection with other beings.

I am witnessing a tiny moment of its decay and it is witnessing a moment of my awakening. I am marvelling at the fact that we are made of the same stuff, but to a vastly different result. It seems that it has all the answers, whereas I have none. It seems so much more solid, balanced, reliable, useful even in its death, while my default operation mode these days is helplessness.

Yet, I have to trust myself that I also somehow play a role in the universe. I am a home to billions of tiny organisms, I am a part of cultural survival and maybe even, if I try very very hard, I can be someone’s momentary comfort.