Each winter morning, once the sun is high enough to shine through the trees, I go out to the yard of the little house we’re renting in Maine and begin a ritual that’s become an important part of my day. I tap my chest and my rib cage. I stretch my hands to the sky, welcoming the light and love I feel pouring down.

A dear friend on the Outer Banks showed me these energy medicine exercises nearly eight years ago. They’re meant to help me shed bitterness from my life and pull light back in.  They’ve been amazingly successful—so much so that sometimes I forget they’re not enough.

One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, Jeff drove to Raleigh to visit with our nephew Spencer, who had recently come north from Mississippi to take a graduate class. Both hungry, they went to a Mediterranean restaurant near Spencer’s dorm.

As they placed their orders at the counter, Jeff noticed the T-shirt worn by the young woman helping them. Bright red, it showed the silhouettes of three young people—not their faces, just their hair. Two of the figures were female. They seemed to be wearing hijabs. The young woman helping them also wore a headscarf. Jeff asked her what the drawing signified.

I need to steel myself to tell you this: the bugs seem to be winning.

Not just the bugs, but also the black rot and fungi—the very plagues for which commercial orchardists spray the chemicals thought to be killing colonies of honey bees.

This time last year, we were wandering among our apple trees, picking a meager but healthy harvest of mostly heritage fruit. It had been a difficult season, but we were hopeful. Our attempts to tend the trees sustainably seemed to be working. We’d even found a good population of beneficial insects eating bad insects our trees.

But let me go back to the very beginning.