Still Holding Vigil

By Laura Crosby
 
In the spirit of “everything and everyone is a teacher,” what you are about to read is a simple reflection on how mindfulness practice is present and relevant in unexpected ways. While drawn from recent events, politics are entirely beside the point (well, almost entirely).
 
On November 3, 2024, the poet Alison Luterman shared, “Holding Vigil.” Within hours, it flew around the world in posts, texts, emails, phone calls, podcasts, and meditation rooms like ours at The Center. Read and re-read in conversation and community. You will find the poem in full below.
 
Why? Why did this poem go “viral” with such a sense of urgency?
 
It might be a few things: The way it met people precisely where they were aching in that moment. The way it offered “a moment of unity,” reminding us how many — “every single blessed being on the face of the earth” — were feeling the weight, if not worry, of the time.
 
And it helped us understand that what we were doing was a kind of holding vigil. That the ache, unity, and magnitude of the moment was calling us to pause in observance of an uncertain end and beginning.
 
When we hold vigil, we keep awake and pay quiet, watchful attention even during the time usually spent asleep. Some keep vigil in prayer or protest; hand-in-hand or bedside in honor of dying, death, and difficult change.
 
We bring our vigilance to the import of each moment, tenderly holding the beings we share it with and the feelings that arise. This is quite unlike hypervigilance, in which there is exaggerated reactivity and confusion. 
 
From a mindfulness perspective, what makes this poem so significant is that it parallels how we practice:
 
Meeting ourselves and others where we are in each moment. Not where we think we should be or would like to be. Starting right where we are, going to where it hurts or to what’s most true, and meeting the sufferings and joys with awareness.
 
As the beloved teacher Vinny Ferraro says, “We show up, surrender, and care about what arises.”
 
Through practice, coming to see that we are not separate or alone. That just like us others are experiencing fear, anger, and grief. Seeing our “interbeing” with all of life can unwind the binds of self-obsession.
 
Staying awake to our life in a vigil-like willingness to be present with whatever arises. Bringing kind awareness and compassion to moments of intense difficulty — when we most want to escape into “sleep” — as well as to moments of profound ease, joy, and gratitude.
 
The poem also contains discomfort, despair. A suffering that often brings people to mindfulness practice. To the healing and equanimity of moment-to-moment awareness. Grounded, relaxed, open, attentive, ready to see clearly and act wisely.
 
It’s been just 200 days since Luterman released her poem. To say that much has happened understates the immense upheaval and toll of this time. Add to this the waves of gains and loss in our own lives, and …
 
Yes, many of us are still holding vigil. May it be mindful.
 
Dedicated to Dawn Dianne Wood, my mother and wise friend, for whom I am still holding vigil.
Holding Vigil by Alison Luterman


My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,
waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out
in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down
to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels
as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about
is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat
asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.
I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,
the fact that we are all waiting in the same
hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,
and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?
Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,
as families do, and bringing each other coffee
from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it
while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,
which is also what happens at times like these,
and I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,
heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,
in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep
of human history, a soap bubble, because empires
are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations
die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens
all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,
your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator,
and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about
when she wakes at three in the morning,
cause she’s got two daughters, and that’s the thing,
it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day
and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food,
cheap clothing, but right now I’m talking about the babies,
and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls
and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer,
the icebergs for the love of God—every single
blessed being on the face of this earth
is holding its breath in this moment,
and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin,
then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it
we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.

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