Musings on a Misty Morning in March

​In March, morning mist is a frequent occurrence where I live, especially after cool, calm nights when the air is heavy with humidity. Usually arriving in darkness, it only becomes apparent when dawn fails to reveal the familiar outlines of the world and everything is bathed in a muted and mysterious milkiness.    
 
The statuesque Douglas Fir trees near my home melt into soft silhouettes. My neighbors’ houses dissolve into insubstantial apparitions. The fence across the way becomes a suggestion rather than a declaration. Even the well-trodden path beneath my feet seems provisional, as if it might change its mind and lead me to an unknown destination. In the presence of morning mist, the landscape I know so well becomes imprecise and indefinable. The clarity of vision I am so accustomed to fades and I am gently ushered into a softer, more ambiguous way of seeing: one that makes way for uncertainty, not knowing, and humility.
 
In the morning mist, distance loses its dominion. The normally distinct horizon disappears, and along with it the prospect of being anywhere else except here and now. All hopes and dreams of a better place, a better time, a better life, a better me in the future are dissolved by the moist, mellifluous air. What remains is what is close and near: The next breath, the next step, the next sound. An unseen crow caws. Damp air beads on blades of grass. Footsteps fall flat and quiet. The mist gathers me back from fantasies of the future into an intimacy with the present moment. Enveloping me in an embodied immediacy, it is a gentle reminder that life cannot be lived at the horizon but only in the present moment. Although this can sometimes feel like a deprivation, it is also a liberation. When I cannot see far ahead, I am freed from the burden of endless planning, predicting, and projecting.
 
Just as the morning mist brings me back to the here and now, it also humbles the hubris of ego. The self that wants to stand above it all and be in control is softly brought back to earth. In the heavy haziness, I cannot be the all-seeing surveyor of the landscape. The one who directs the action and manages events from on high. The one who plans and organizes from a vantage point of superiority. Even as it obscures the world, the mist reveals the delusion of self-importance and separateness that is so deeply ingrained in my being. Now, I can only meet life at close range - face to face, breath to breath, eye to eye. There can be both a comforting companionship in this closeness and a profound understanding that I can never be a detached observer of life. I cannot control what happens in the world, any more than I can control my own body. But neither am I a helpless victim of fate. Like everyone and everything else, I am embedded in life’s mystery and a co-creative participant in its unfolding.
 
There is a subtle spirituality in learning to love what cannot be clearly seen. It requires a patient presence and a tender faithfulness — not an unquestioned obedience to the gods of our desires, but an enduring and careful confidence in the emergent processes of life. This is a faith of felt trust, a faith based on not knowing that says: “I do not know what lies ahead, but I have confidence that I can take the next step.”
 
This is what it’s like to live with life’s uncertainties. There are times when answers are not obvious, when direction feels diffuse, and destination feels dim. We try to look ahead but at best we can see only a few feet in front of us. In response, we often push forwards into the future, grasping frantically at what is not yet clear. We seem averse to living with uncertainty.  Desperately seeking the safety and security of knowing, we are usually unwilling to pause and rest in the ambiguity of our lives. Yet this is precisely what the morning mist counsels: slow down, take one small step at a time, and trust that clarity will return when the weather changes.
 
There is often a disorienting discomfort that comes with not knowing – a feeling of powerlessness, fear, and vulnerability. But when we are willing to admit we don’t know, ignorance can be transformed into tender inquiry. It is only when the certainty of answers is absent that curiosity can arise. And curiosity cultivates connection, closeness, and caring. In Zen Buddhism, there is a saying “not knowing is the most intimate”.
 
With tender inquiry and curiosity, not knowing can be transformed into wonder, and wonder can open the mind, enabling us to release tightly held, constricting concepts about ourselves, others, and the world. So much of our spiritual growth depends not on accumulating rigid realizations, bold beliefs, and definitive declarations of fact, but on letting go of what we think we know. Morning mist calls us into this relinquishment. Striping the landscape of clear certainties, it suggests shapes and shades, hints and hushes, magic and mystery. Experience becomes simpler and yet richer and deeper.
 
And as our minds open, our hearts can relax to embrace it all. When we acknowledge how little we truly know and how mysterious life truly is we become less rigid, less dogmatic, less judgmental – no longer pushing forwards and grasping. Just as uncertainty can open the mind, so it can soften the heart. Hearts hardened by the harshness of knowing can expand and enlarge. And, if we let it, the morning mist can remind us that we are all navigating with partial visibility, feeling our way forward with only limited understanding - whether we aware of it or not. So with the acknowledgement of not knowing, kindness and compassion can emerge.
 
A gift of morning mist — and of uncertainty — is therefore not confusion but communion. It draws us into deeper intimacy with the present moment, with each other, and with the world just as it is -  unclear, uncertain and often confused and chaotic. When we understand that meaning does not depend on clear seeing, we can perhaps begin to discern the beauty that can bloom in the blurred and the half-seen.
 
To live well, then, might mean living a little like a mist-walker: attentive, adaptable, and unafraid of ambiguity. Being willing to take the next step without demanding a map of the entire journey. Being curious about where we are in this very moment. Orienting ourselves with present-moment intentions, rather than distant goals. Saying “I don’t know, let’s explore”, rather than rushing towards resolution and decision. Trusting that a path will emerge out of the haziness simply because we are willing to walk it.
 
Morning mist may not promise any clarity of vision, but it offers something perhaps more precious: The present moment, an intimacy with uncertainty, and a loving lesson in how to live when the way ahead is not apparent. And maybe that is enough. Blessing us with a soft suspension of certainty, morning mist invites us to live in the here and now and to let go of how we think life should be. It encourages us to step into the wisdom of living in uncertainty, not by pushing ahead and grasping, but by being curious and inquiring into it. In learning to love what we cannot see, we can discover a deeper trust in life itself—and perhaps, a deeper sense of contentment and peace.
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Events

All times are Pacific Time

Tuesday, March 17 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Tuesday, March 31 7:00 - 8:30 pm On Zoom and In Person
Bellingham Insight Meditation Society
Doubt and Discernment
For Zoom link, please email: [email protected]

Tuesday, April 7 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Tuesday, April 21 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person - **CANCELLED - RESCHEDULED TO APRIL 28**
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Tuesday, April 28 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Thursday, September 17 7:00 - 8:45 pm on Zoom and In Person
Wise Spirit Buddhist Community Portland, OR
Topic: TBA

Saturday, September 19 9:00 am - 4:00 pm on Zoom and In Person
Portland Insight Meditation Community
Daylong Retreat: The Brahmaviharas and Anatta: Contradiction or Complement?

Friday, November 6 - Thursday, November 12 In Person
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center, WA
Residential retreat (six nights)
Expanding Perception and ReMembering Who We Are...Slowing Down-Sensing-Responding
Co-taught with Ayya Santacitta
More info and registration
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