A blessing of fear in these years is that it invites us to become the fullness of ourselves. It comes to us in the nighttime of the soul to tell us to rise to new selves in fresh and exciting ways—for our sake, of course, but for the sake of the rest of the world, as well.
Meditation is basically the practice of quieting the mind on deeper and deeper levels until we reach the underlying, subtle consciousness that is the root of all things. But a quiet mind does not mean the absence of thoughts. It means a mind that does not interfere with or distort the natural flow of sensations, feelings, perceptions, images, and thoughts through the open field of our consciousness. A quiet mind is a clear space, a mirror for the entire experience of inner and outer life.