The Beauty of Zero

On beginnings, foundations, and the fullness of nothing

“Why doesn’t anyone say zero when you start counting? It’s the first number. You don’t skip one. If you can skip zero, then you can skip any other number. Zero is holding all the other numbers from falling.”

I sit silently listening to my 8-year-old daughter, Lil Sis, ruminate about the absence of zero in our counting string. I’m thankful she is ruminating, because I’m thinking to myself, “This question is going to be more difficult to answer than ‘Where do babies come from?’” I don’t interrupt; her thoughtful dissection feels sacred.

I think about the first year of an infant, 0–12 months. Instinctual creatures, born with a knowing. You see this in the bond with their momma, the way an infant roots to nurse, recognizes her scent, and settles in her arms. In that closeness, they are safe. Year zero is the most spiritual year of all: pure soul, no ego. Just naturalism at its best. A year that, like my daughter said, holds all the other years from falling.

Zero is not emptiness. It isn’t nothing. It feels like the fullest number. It is the beginning, the pause before creation, the moment of reset, the quiet foundation of balance. It’s your favorite mug before the coffee. The tea bag before it blooms in hot water. The blank page before words. The mattress without gorgeous blankets and pillows. The canvas before paint. Without zero, nothing else can exist in harmony.

For me, faith is zero. The unseen that holds everything together. The return to the foundation. My children live closer to zero than I do. They don’t rush to fill silence. They don’t leap ahead. They linger. They question. They remind me that starting from zero is not nothing. It is everything.

My own life has returned to zero more than once, and I know I will return again. Each time, it has been a gift. To live closer to zero is to reject a fixed mindset and to choose evolution, curiosity, and becoming.

I go back to the canvas, select my brushes, mix my colors, and create again. I am not fixed. I am not finished. I am the beauty of a blank slate, the possibility of zero.

And in that, my daughter was right all along; zero is what keeps everything else from falling.

🌞 Hanging By a Sunrise