I don’t know what to say, friends. I’ve been blocked since it all began. I haven’t spoken to anyone but my shrink about it. My throat chakra – the energy center of communication, spoken and otherwise – is knotted up.

My shrink tells me that many of his PTSD patients are experiencing higher levels of anxiety with the atrocities taking place in Ukraine, and I’ve found this to be true for myself. My known triggers have become hair-triggers. I bowed out of a work happy hour get-together tonight because it’s St Patrick’s Day (which was the point of the gathering). The consequential vibe on the streets would potentially have amounted to the effect of a bad acid trip.

I don’t know.

If there could be a made-up monster as vile as the human one responsible for this.

If there could be some academic way to run toward light from darker places.

If the collective conscience cracking like old ice beneath the weight of the evil in the world could be more palpable.

I’ve found that staring hard at anything else is the only way, and yet it’s inescapable… as well it should be. One way to help support the people of Ukraine is to simply be with them.

My “commute” to work is less than ten minutes down surface streets, but it’s enough time for a vehicle with “Pray for Ukraine” spray-painted across its back windshield to get in front of me, and then I arrive at work in tears.

At the same time, I’ve been experiencing a joy that hasn’t visited me in years, and I’ve been focusing on enjoying and nurturing that. I have much for which to be thankful. And I am. I am blessed here in this dusty little speck of a large world.

The End.

It’s late, but my hair is clean.

I’m going to escape into nature on Saturday, and I can think of few things more profound than the making of that sacred connection.

For Ukraine, I say prayers at the end of the day, which is all that can be done to help the wounded, the suffering, and the bereaved. At the end of it all, the survivors will become the Earth’s newest generation of living scars.

Yikes, my friends… I’m drifting off. I hope this finds you safe and well.