Existential Uncertainty—That Very Human Experience Of Not Knowing

Offering prayers or setting intentions becomes a practice for living with uncertainty.
We name what has heart and meaning. And then we live without guarantees.

Holding Space When We Don’t Know

Because I’ve been in the space in-between projects, I’ve been thinking lately about existential uncertainty—that very human experience of not knowing.

Where am I going?

What is mine to do?

Who am I becoming now?

And, what if I don’t need to know?

Sometimes these questions arise because something in our personal lives is changing. A relationship ends. Our work changes. Our bodies age. A dream is fulfilled and suddenly the future that once organized our lives is wide open again. Sometimes uncertainty comes from looking at the world around us. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by circumstances far beyond our individual control.

Others expressed a longing to grow more fully into leadership through art, dance, song, and creating healing spaces, with strength, grace, dignity, and a heart of service to love.

For an entire year, the Prayer Tree has stood outside my home, stalwart through each season, easily holding its precious cargo of human hopes and dreams. I’ve come to think of the tree as having held space for our prayers all year. And perhaps that is part of what we were doing for one another when we gathered, too.

Different lives. Different needs and desires. Different words. And yet together, the flags became a colorful collective expression of what we cared about, what we hoped for, and what we wanted to call into being.

We may not be able to resolve the enormous questions of our time, but we can create spaces where we listen rather than divide, where we remember our shared humanity, where our fears and hopes can be spoken and witnessed, and where we strengthen one another’s capacity to meet uncertainty with courage, compassion, creativity, and love.

In times when we cannot know what comes next, how we hold one another may be one of the things we can know. Sometimes holding each other with just one person can be enough.

The Prayers Beneath the Prayers

Looking again at our prayer flags, I realize how much uncertainty was already woven through them. We pray and set intentions to be bold and brave because we don’t know what courage will ask of us. We pray for hope because we cannot see the outcome.

We pray and set intentions for collaboration because we know there are crossings we don’t want to make alone. We pray for peace because conflict exists. We pray and set intentions for greater creative expression because we sense possibilities within ourselves that have not yet taken form.

Perhaps our prayers are not only requests for particular outcomes. Perhaps they are also ways of saying: This is what I love. This is what matters to me. This is what I choose to stand for, even though I don’t know what will happen.

Seen this way, prayer itself becomes a practice for living with uncertainty. We name what has heart and meaning. And then we live without guarantees.

Becoming a Prayer Tree for One Another

Holding space for ourselves and another person doesn’t mean having answers. It doesn’t require us to fix all the problems, remove the uncertainty, or always know which path to take.

When we gather to support another, we don’t necessarily make uncertainty disappear but we can do something else. We help one another carry it. We listen. We witness. We pray. We create. We laugh and eat together. We sit around fires. We remember what matters. For a little while, we become like the Prayer Tree for one another.

You can hang your prayer here. You can bring your uncertainty here. You don’t have to know yet. There is room for your hope, your grief, your longing, your becoming. And perhaps holding space for others is itself an antidote to existential uncertainty. When we don’t know exactly what our own next chapter will be, we can still ask:

What can I put energy into?

What can I contribute?

Whose prayer can I hold for a while?

What kind of space can I help create?

Returning the Prayers to the Fire

This Autumn Equinox, it will be time for me to complete the cycle we began last year. I will take the now-weathered prayer flags and offer them to the transformative fire. For a year, the tree has held them. Now it is time to release.

We release our prayers from the branches and entrust them once again to Life. Perhaps this is one of the practices we most need in uncertain times:

Not certainty, but trust.

Not knowing what will happen, but trusting our capacity to meet what comes.

Not having every answer, but knowing what we love.

Not knowing exactly where the path leads, but recognizing what feels alive now. Not being able to fix everything for one another, but being willing to stay present. And remembering that none of us has to stand alone at the threshold of the unknown.

Your Autumn Equinox Journal Prompts:

As we approach this turning of the season, I invite you to take a few quiet moments and ask:

• What uncertainty am I carrying right now?
• What would change if I didn’t require myself to have the answer yet?
• What prayer am I carrying into this next season?
• Who helps me feel accompanied in the unknown?
• Where might I become a Prayer Tree for someone else—holding space for their hopes, fears, or becoming without needing to fix anything?
• What prayer, expectation, identity, or outcome have I held long enough?
  And finally: What am I ready to offer to the fire?