At the end of February, when Russia began attacking Ukraine, I was hosting an art and writing retreat on an ice-locked island in far northern Minnesota. The internet didn’t exist and cellular coverage was spotty and so weak that regular news updates weren’t received by anyone that weekend. We’d heard from a neighbor that Ukraine was surprising Russia by fighting back, that there were bombs, and it was pretty bad.

Meanwhile, out the windows of the lodge, four lynx walked by in a single file line. And cedar waxwings gathered at the tops of the trees. At night the stars shone most brilliantly in the cold air and we hurried in the outhouses because the temperature the first morning was -47 degrees.

February was the month when I discovered Will Smith’s “Welcome to Earth.” In episode one, he shared the story of a research group who crawled deep into a cave searching for absolute silence. Beyond the murmur of traffic, beyond our multitude of cellular/television/radio/micro- waves’ humming, they descended. With an audio recorder. And when they came to a flat, dry space they pushed the ‘record’ button, left the machine behind, and climbed back up.

Turns out absolute silence is only a human idea- not an earth reality. Deep in the cave the audio recorder picked up a constant rumble. A deep scraping sound. No one had heard it before, this sound from deep within the rocky roots of earth.

Will Smith explained in his perfect-for-documentary-narrating voice, “It’s actually thought to be the sound of the moon’s gravity dragging the mountains. The moon pulls on the sea to create tides. It turns out, it does the same to the land.”

It’s called earth tides. And scientists think it happens everywhere. Even New York City rises and falls up to 14 inches twice a day, every day.

While none of us on that island retreat knew what was happening in Kiev, we learned about building guitars. We composed poems, paintings, collages, and letters. We sang together, skied across frozen lakes, and drank a ridiculous amount of Tazo lemon loaf tea in front of the fireplace. We wore face masks, because that was still the CDC’s advice. But we were so happy to be together again.

In the face of tragedy, words fall short. I feel paralyzed by the enormity of the war in Ukraine.

But I had this moment, during that weekend retreat, when I imaged peace being like the earth tide: Maybe, like the earth tide, peace is always there- under our feet, so constant we’ve forgotten about it. And where we need it most, tanks, explosions, and egos steal away our focus. But peace is always there. Waiting for someone, anyone, to notice.

When we think there’s silence, the earth speaks. When we think there’s stillness, the earth moves. The mountains are dragging themselves, right now. They are pulled, like the seas, by unseen forces, constantly. And maybe we can be too.