Earth

Our planet is very sick.  We’ve known this for a long time now, but it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore.  We have been taking much more than our earth can give.  It has been trying to adapt.  Trying to readjust.   But we just keep upping our demands.  Maybe Covid-19 is its way of forcing us to stop and pay attention?  Its way of giving itself the time that it needs to heal?  Earth’s wisdom is infinitely greater than human’s intellect.  We’ve become so self-centered and materialistic that we have lost sight of the fact that getting what we think we are owed is destroying our home and the life that is sustained by it.   Is our ego-based way of thinking going to eventually be our demise?  Our relationship with earth is more than a connection.  We are one with it.  Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  Earth is us.  We are earth.  It’s impossible for humans to be healthy living on a sick planet.  When are we going to realize this?  How long will it take for Covid-19 to go away?  As long as it takes for our planet to heal?  As long as it takes for us to change our ways?  Standing at this crossroad.  Our planet has spoken.  Are we going to wake up?  Or keep putting profit above people and our planet?  There is no question whatsoever that this pandemic is going to forever change us.  But will it be for better or worse?

Stay Home

Imagine living in a place without a health care system.  I’m not talking about the absence of free health care here.  I’m talking about being on your own if or when you became sick or injured.  Canadians have a hard time imagining such a setting since we have always taken for granted the fact that when we are unwell that there will always be doctors, nurses and hospitals ready, willing and able to help us get better.  Broken leg.  Certainly painful and not fun, but most often totally fixable.  Appendicitis.  Something that people almost never die from.  Heart attack.  Serious, but still not always fatal with modern treatments.  Certain cancers.  Often curable if caught early.  Without our health care system, these ailments would change from often fixable to pretty much almost always fatal.  Think about that for a bit.  If you’re not afraid of dying if you get infected with the Covid-19 virus, think about dying from something usually treatable after the collapse of our health care system.  Still in denial that this could ever happen?  A few weeks ago I could not imagine what we are facing right now in North America.  Never.  This is serious.  This is World War III.  This is unprecedented.  Please support our front-line troops fighting for us.  Stay home.  Practice social distancing.  Minimum 2 meters distance from each other.  Even when walking outside.  Self-isolate if asked to do so.  Stop visiting friends and family that don’t live with you.  Please.  I am begging you to take this seriously.  Hoping this all just goes away isn’t enough.  We’re all in this together.  Let’s not screw it up.

Covid 19

The words immobilized.  Or maybe just so many of them coming up that I don’t really know where to start?  Writing is usually very therapeutic for me.  But the last few days have left me speechless.  Paralyzed.  Frightened.  Anxious.  In 2002, my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.  I vividly remember the deep fear and sense of helplessness that I felt during that time.  Nothing else mattered but her health.  We adapted.  Things got better.  And she is doing very well today.  The last few days have brought me back to those days almost 18 years ago.  Overwhelmed by the same fear and feeling so very helpless.  Trying to surrender to the uncertainty that we are facing even if it is so very unsettling.  On one hand, I am concerned about how Covid-19 will affect me and my family if we become infected.  On the other hand, I am terrified about the burden on our health care system.  We could survive the virus but die from another curable ailment a few months later because of a collapsed health care system.  Are we doing enough, soon enough, to flatten the curve?  The repercussions on the economy are inevitable at this point.  Denying this fact by allowing non-essential offices to remain open only contributes to spreading the virus.   They keep telling us not to panic, but look at how that worked out for other countries that are a few weeks ahead of us in this pandemic.  Maybe we’re not panicking enough?!  Everything but non-essential services should be cancelled and closed immediately. Actually, they should have been cancelled and closed last week.  What does that look like?  Basically, it looks like Christmas day.  A few places open to purchase food, pharmacies, gas stations and obviously prisons and hospitals.  Everyone isolates themselves from others except when absolutely necessary.  We’re all in this together.  Life as we know it is going to be very different for a while now.  My hope is that when things return back to a certain normal that all of our friends and family are still around to see it.  Isn’t that what we should all be aiming for?

Water

Water.  Born deep in my gut.  Fluttering up through my heart.  Spilling out into the corner of my eye.  Pool overflowing.  Trickling down my cheek.  Undone.  Uninhibited.  Such a seemingly harmless delicate melody.  Allowing.  Flowing.  Tears.  Crying wasn’t always effortless for me.  I used to be really good at holding everything in.  Years and years of relentless practicing.  My self-containing skills reaching an expert level.  My abilities so outstanding that my emotions had become inaccessible.  Straight face.  Stoic front.  Numb.  Disconnected.  Even in a safe setting, alone, I still couldn’t feel what I was feeling.  Weeping was just something that I could never do.  A prisoner of my own fortress.  The music an escape.  Poignant tunes.  Romantic, sentimental, happy, sad songs that wake up my inner aliveness.  Strangely, I have been noticing how I often feel happiest when I’m sad.  Maybe simply allowing myself to feel the sadness makes room for the happiness that lives behind it?  Like how I always felt so much better after crying it out as a child.  We are taught that sadness is something that needs to be fixed.  Maybe it just needs to be experienced?  There is nothing bad or wrong with sadness even if it can be unpleasant, seemingly unbearable at times.  Repressing it is what makes it dangerous.  Maybe depression isn’t too much sadness?  Maybe depression is too much repressed sadness?  Sadness is part of being alive.  Part of everything beautiful.  Part of romance. Part of death.  Sadness is what gives life meaning.  Love cannot exists without a certain sadness.  How deeply are you allowing yourself to feel it?  Water.

Fight

Fight.  Standing there.  Eyes closed.  I begin to see.  Never stop fighting is what everyone keeps telling me.  But I don’t feel like a fighter.  I mostly just feel tired.  Tired of pretending.  Tired of fighting.  Tired of pretending to be a fighter.  My fatigue is not desperate, depressed or hopeless.  Yes, my body aches.  But most of all, it’s my soul that’s exhausted.  Drained from compromising myself.  Burnt out from faking it for so long.  So spent, I forget who or what I am fighting for.  There is this template that the cultural engineers are selling us.  To solve all problems, first find the culprit.  Identify who or what is to blame.  Make it the enemy.  Then, go to war.  Battle and conquer.   The problem with this constant fight is that it is making us become one of them.  Not better.  The same.  Making us stoop down to their level.  Propelling us towards hate instead of love.  The loss of our inner peace.  Our inside disposition mirroring our outward struggle.  Our external battles slowly infecting our inner harmony.  The fight eventually becoming against our own selves.  Looking back, I now realize that I never was a fighter.  Always uneasy with confrontation.  Avoiding altercations as much as possible.  I have always preferred peace above powerfully forcing my beliefs and virtues on others.  Maybe, in the end, fighting doesn’t really solve anything?  Maybe, in the end, there are no winners in fighting?  Maybe, in the end, we all just come out as losers?  Maybe the world doesn’t need more fighters?  Maybe what the world needs right now is more healers?  Fight.

Enough

Enough.  How do we know?  What does it look like?  Does it have a sound?  What about a smell?  How does it feel?  How do we recognize enough?  Good enough.  Rich enough.  Skinny enough.  Pretty enough.  Far enough.  Fast enough.  How do we know when to say when?  Fear and the never ending cycle of trying to get ahead means gathering more than enough.  Stockpiling, just in case.  We call it saving for a rainy day.  We assume more is better.  But when does it become a sickness?  Not enough is undeniably not good.  It’s certainly insufficient.  It can even be lethal.  But too much can also be as harmful.  Human animals are the only living beings that take more than we need.  Wolves don’t kill all of the rabbits.  Just enough to keep them fed.   Human business models built on never ending growth are always eventually unsustainable.  Living cells that abnormally divide more than enough is cancer.  Never enough is destructive.  A trap that many get caught in.  A black hole that swallows us whole.  A disease.  An infectious illness that is wreaking havoc on our health and on our planet.  Enough requires patience.  Enough requires self-restraint.  Enough comes from a place of love.  If we love each other and feel like we have each other’s back, there is no need to save for that rainy day.  You are already enough just the way that you are.  Enough is your wealth.  Are you tapping into it?  In the end, enough will simply always be.  Enough.

Winter's purpose

Even with the extra day, February sure seems to have come and gone quickly.  March.  Such an unstable month.  Some days feel like winter will never end.  Other days feel like the sun has slowly started turning up the heat.  In many ways, it was a tough winter for me.  Not because of the cold and snow.  It was mostly a discrepancy between how I physically felt and how I thought I should feel.  Expectations and measurable benchmarks are bitches like that.  Sunday morning, I felt a yearning to venture out to the pavilion.  I knew that the main trail would be rideable, but I wasn’t sure about the dead end pathway leading up to it.  It wasn’t cleared at all.  Untouched snow drifts.  The snow crust was almost sturdy enough to ride on.  I would make it 5 – 10 meters and then my fat tires would break through the top layer and I would come to a halt.  I alternated between riding and walking, eventually making it to the pavilion.  I had never been out there in winter.  Sitting on the frozen bench.  So very open.  Strong, cold wind blowing.  Snow dust dancing.  Feeling hollow as the gusts penetrated me.  Purifying.  Soul sterilizing.  Winter blues purging.  There’s something comforting about being at the pavilion.  An inner peace.  A reset of sorts.  Huddled as much as I could against the wind chill, I drank some tea.  As much as it stills feels like the dead of winter, it’s like I can feel the life, including my own, slowly awakening under the snow coat.  Maybe winter’s purpose is to highlight the eternal fire that burns in our hearts?  Or maybe that warmth that I felt was just because of the steamy tea?  Either way, I felt reassured as I headed back home.