When the news of the world is heavy, and the burden of belonging to this place feels like too much to bear, when this phone is a stone in my pocket, and grief is the shaky ground undergirding everything, I come to the woods and stand among the White cedars. Here, instead of weighing me down like a pall of wet wool, the heaviness stills me—it’s a hand on my shoulder pushing me to go deeper into my heart-space. 𝘈𝘯𝘢𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘢, the yogis call it, meaning 𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘥. It’s the stillness between heartbeats, the rest before motion, the pause between breaths. I close my eyes and bring my hands together at my heart. A steady mist of rain dampens my face. I inhale and, for a moment, all is still. Still, I worry about the world, about what we’ve become. At once there are dozens of Tundra Swans soaring above the cedars. I hear the wind whistling through their wings before I even open my eyes. Their clear ululation saturates the soft cavity of my chest, sates the yawning maw of sorrow wholly. Holy and familiar they call like the pealing of church bells, like a lullaby hummed in the dark. I watch them retreat beyond the canopy of naked trees; white wings splayed open, wet with the weight of water. Their feathered bodies fade until they are nothing more than a thrumming ellipses punctuating the sky. I close my eyes again. This time I let the stillness expand to include wingbeat and birdsong. I exhale fully and in the pause before the next breath, it’s as if my own wet wings have begun to unfurl. A buoyancy sidles up to the heaviness and I think, maybe, it’s hope. I inhale, filling my lungs and expanding my heart-space. 𝘈𝘯𝘢𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘢. For one moment, 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩.