‘Still caught in a system that makes us smaller than we could be’

Tracy K. Smith taught herself to meditate in the summer of 2020, anxious and grieving the loss of Black lives around the country like those of George Floyd and others. Sitting every day in an Adirondack chair under an oak tree in her backyard, she would burn a little sage or cedar, close her eyes, and breathe.

The sessions, which started as a way of “holding herself together” amid the “din of human division and strife,” became a time to reflect on the past, to conjure visions of family members and ancestors who offered consolation, comfort, and guidance.