During the lockdown, my daughter has been experimenting with homemade sourdough starter, since we have been unable to find yeast in the local stores or online. The starter is created by mixing flour and water, and then letting the microorganisms that live in the flour and air multiply. There's something magical about the creative process of the microorganisms, unique to the particular air of this kitchen as they mix with those organisms that are unique to this particular bag of flour, and thrive and bubble with life's energy. A neighbor, who has more experience with homemade yeast, told us that it helps the process if you give your starter a name. So my preschooler grandson named it Ab. He and his mom feed Ab flour and water once or twice a day, Ab has rewarded them with exquisite artisan loaves of bread and outstanding homemade pizza crust!
Whenever I hear my daughter announce, "It's time to feed Ab," I am reminded of a spiritual adage I learned from my friend Sidd: "Feed the Light." He sometimes adds his observation that in life, the Dark will take care of itself; it will grow on it's own. The Light expands as we feed it.
As a minister I was trained in New Thought, which aims to rise beyond the world of duality and the battle of Good vs. Evil. New Thought turns it's attention to the Oneness of Life and stays there. New Thought offers the analogy of stumbling into a dark room, bumping into things.
To avoid fear, frustration or injury, you don't argue or fight with the dark. You find the light switch and turn it on. The dark disappears. A similar analogy is to imagine camping at night by a fire in the woods. Gradually you become aware that there are wolves encroaching on the campsite. Again, you don't do battle with the wolves. You build a blazing bonfire from that little campfire and the wolves will withdraw on their own. Whether we are speaking of your own inner state, or the outer times and events of the last months (and today), the spiritual focus is the same. Feed the Light. The "still point" within you is Its Source. (Susan Nettleton)
For poetic inspiration on feeding the Light, consider the poem "Light" by Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941).
Follow the link for the poem "Light".
https://www.best-poems.net/rabindranath_tagore/light.html
Note: Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his poetry compilation Gitanjali, published in 1912 that included "Light." During the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic which killed 18 million people in India, Tagore was running a gurukula school for boys in West Bengal. Because there was an extreme doctor shortage and he had studied Ayurvedic medicine, he attended to the sick throughout those years.