Category: pandemic

Waking Up to Mars

The day we awoke to a dark red, ashened sky a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to write from a one word prompt – Beauty.

Beauty

“Oh my God it’s so beautiful”, you are so beautiful, we are so beautiful. These words ring through me when I’m asked about beauty. Instant gasp, dipped in a reservoir of feeling that surpasses the body.

The dog that is God that I’m taking care of now, my little big gift of love, the greatest task I could think of; to be the guardian of such a sweet, calming spirit. Of course he takes care of me is the trade, an unspoken understanding in each other’s presence. I sit here in the most comfy chair imaginable, in someone else’s house I’m also taking care of.

This unexpected welcome, another light in the storm all around me, made mostly of wood; the essence of family, my family the trees that never let me down. I grieve for my giants who honor me with oxygen and protection, the hundreds of years that some of them have lived. I breathe in and taste their ashes, as I will for my loved ones when they die.

There is a fireplace here, to the right of my comfy chair as Teddy dog sleeps in my lap, and I realize I’ve had this. I’ve imagined a living room just like this, a place I’ve been in my mind that represents all that I’d love to find. I notice what I’ve been given, if even so fleetingly, and say thank you again to life.

As I lay my head back to rest it in the chair, Teddy lightly snoring and vibrating through me, in robe and socks, herbal tea to my side, ready to sip, I look out the window to the morning fog outside. Just white grey and green, only the trees can be seen, the survivors.

How many survivors of uglyness there are, all of us living and bursting through it. The unstoppable grace of forced surrender.

I’ve barely listened to music in the last few months, so strange and unlike me, as quiet soothes me now more than ever. Everything has changed, as we all ask, who am I really? But all I need do if a cry is in order, which it is almost daily it seems, is play ‘Let it Be”. Without fail every time, that same sensation, being smacked and shakened by beauty. A sound, a vision, chest expanse of feeling, and there it is again. A vastness of wisdom that hovers outside my thinking mind, touching something else to bring the tears.

What is it? There is no way of understanding while we remain here in this life, where it comes from that is without words to describe. That instant reaching down into the cellars of truth that pierces the heart and floods awe through.

Today I wonder why so few things pop up when I’m asked about beauty. Maybe it’s because I’m so moved all the time lately. A bluebird just hopped onto the deck outside! You see? The tightness of fear that I feel in the world, in the masked faces and shares and voices everywhere, in the expression of “help I don’t know what to do”. Such acute awareness of Living. There’s no turning back and no clear way forward. So we float in the smoke of limboland, in the tension of suspension above quicksand below.

I saw a man trying to break another world record, this time being the first to go highest of all. Up up in a balloon to the ceiling of Earth, then just past the borderline and into the stars. The breath of the trees was no longer there, as he floated on the precipice of space and no air. There he was, holding on now with just one arm, above the abyss of the planet below. Basecamp through his headphones says “anytime”, and suddenly, he let go. Just a man free falling from the great unknown, into his own arrival, down, down, down. As we all hold our breath, for a parachute that shows the way.

This is my life I think, as I watch him fall. Will he land? Will he survive? I don’t know, but I do. He touches ground, he made it. “We made it through” we will say, on the other side of all this. I don’t want to forget, the beauty of purgatory, as I hang in the clouds with the world and cry.

Blinders

Blinders

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”- MLK

I’ve been disappointed, though not surprised, at a handful of acquaintances in the “spiritual”, “life coach”, “manifesting” world, all of them white, who call themselves independent thinkers, even progressive, and are actually buying into some of the Trump/Far Right Republican talking points. At first, these have included that having to wear a mask (to help prevent people from dying) is a ruse/plot to control us, hearing things like “Big Government…Bill Gates…pedophile rings…Jeffrey Epstein’s friends (hello, Trump was one of them, when asked about Ghislaine Maxwell he said, twice, “I wish her well”. Don’t get me started.)

This has devolved into “well really, all lives matter because we are all One…just move on from slavery and stop playing the victim…drop your story…just be happy…you can heal yourself…you can never really be harmed”. There’s a term for it now because it’s become so prevalent, GasLightworker.

Yes, most of the pharmaceutical companies are not to be trusted. The power of the mind to heal is a real thing and is actually possible. Love is the answer. In the big picture, everything is working out as it must. We can change our perceptions about our pasts and our futures. Miracles do happen. But that doesn’t mean we get to impose our privilege soaked, spiritual heirarchy mindfuckery onto those who are knee deep in struggle, pain, crisis.

It is insulting, diminishing and disrespectful not only to them, but to those parts of ourselves that have suffered too. No matter how much we improve our ability to feel good, our shadow follows us everywhere. It has a purpose, let’s honor it and the lessons it’s taught us. Acknowledge it’s wisdom to change us; to remember our wounded child. It remains there not to torture us but to free us, so that we can truly be “of service”.

We must, always, put ourselves in other’s shoes who are less fortunate than we are. Then help in any way we can, big or small. Self Mastery is not just standing up for love. It is standing up TO intolerance, hatred, and most insidious, indifference.

What’s especially dangerous about this slippery slope of denial in the “spiritual/personal development” community right now, is the slow dismissing and dehumanizing of the “less evolved”, the poor, the suffering. This is part of what contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany. We must nip this in the bud now when we see it, by not being silent, when those in our own circles show signs of “other”ism, classism, and of course very subtle or blatant racism.

The silence I was met with a few days ago, when I confronted a racist comment in a facebook group I was invited to (“a place for conscious, deep discussions”), was beyond eye opening. That person’s comment remains without anyone else denouncing it.

We didn’t come here for “I got mine”, or to just be “Divine”. We are here to be Humanity too, and to take care of our fellow Earthlings who inhabit it. Therein lies the rub, our greatest challenge.

By shutting our eyes and ears to others pain, be they human animal or non-human animal, to deny our own dark feelings, to stop ourselves from being affected by the world, so we can maintain our “high vibration” and “manifest prosperity”, is to eventually end up in a spiritually bypassing gated community with other people exactly like us. In that mansion, we stop growing, learn nothing, and betray ourselves in the process. That’s not abundance, that’s death in disguise.

Image may contain: plant and outdoor

Those without a voice

There’s a million things I can post about on social media right now, and I know that posting about the plight of animals and the consequences of our actions regarding them can get a collective “oh please, yawn, there’s so many other things to be talking about right now! This is not the time!”

It’s always the time to talk about compassion. We feel compassion for the elderly, the sick, the dying, those who are losing everything, those in the deepest stress and fear of their lives right now, these things that I am feeling on a deep level too. I have a lot of fear too, I’ve been suffering in certain ways too. No one can know the pain in another’s heart. And I hurt for all those around the world who are suffering. And thank God we are finally talking about the things that really matter to us. And if ever there was a time to say “I don’t care anymore how people are going to react to what’s in my heart and what I need to say, no matter how it’s perceived, get over yourself!” it is NOW.

This issue is just one of many passions, there is so much to love in this world, so much beauty; the beauty of animals is one of them. And they are also (like immigrants, like prisoners, like the homeless, like the poor and disenfranchised) the forgotten; dismissed, hurt and thrown away. I’m not a mother, and in lieu of my own child, animals pierce my heart just like a child does. They are innocent, they feel joy, pain and fear too. They just want to live, be free and be with their families.

What is so yearned for in these times is being honest about how we feel and what we’re going through. To say what we must say because it’s more painful not to. is  The planet needs you to be who you are, now more than ever, so that others can know that they can too. Love your fellow Human, reach out and give to your fellow Human. Love your fellow Earthling too.

And please stop eating them, and their milk that was stolen from their babies, as their babies were stolen from them. You can do this for a variety of reasons, for the environment, to prevent another pandemic, for your own health, but to do it for them is the true calling of love. The peace of knowing that you’re doing no harm, and helping Mother Earth and all its inhabitants to heal, is a great relief and empowering strength that no taste pleasure, convenience or cultural pressure can give you.

(art by Lynda Bell)

Spring

When we hit rock bottom, we start to hear the questions we’d never allowed ourselves to ask. And we decide to finally say them out loud.

If healthcare costs for Covid 19 treatment is waived, why do we have to pay for cancer treatment, or any other healthcare costs at all?

If vote by mail is implemented because of Covid 19, making it easier for all of us to vote, why shouldn’t we do vote by mail in every election?

If Amazon or WalMart or other slave labor should suddenly provide their workers with paid sick leave, protective gear, and a liveable wage (because we now realize that how they are treated affects ALL OF US), why shouldn’t all employers have to offer paid sick leave and liveable wages?

If we didn’t like our work, our lives, or our ways of being before, but didn’t change because we were too afraid of what would happen if we did, why did life require a pandemic to force us to think (and FEEL) about that?

Because we weren’t listening, too busy with distraction to hear our own voices.

As I sit here watching the birds taking off, and the trees in the breeze, and the clouds slowly moving across the sun; despite the crazy, despite the death, despite the pain, despite the fear; why do I hear them whisper that this is the best thing that could have happened to the world?

Because the terrifying, unpredictable, beautiful Unknown, in all it’s glorious potential for change, is better than the sleeping numbness of the same old predictable known.

Spring is here, time to wake up.