Covid-19

My Heart Hurts – Day 568

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Silence is Violence & My Heart Hurts – Photo: L. Weikel

My Heart Hurts

You know from my recent posts that the slow, deliberate, and unwarranted killing (murder) of George Floyd in Minneapolis one week ago today – on Memorial Day – has haunted me. And of course I know I am not alone. The depraved manner in which that police officer coldly and nonchalantly pressed his knee onto the back of Mr. Floyd’s neck until his life was snuffed out felt like a straw that broke our country’s back. My heart hurts.

I only heard about the protest scheduled for the center of Doylestown (Bucks County’s county seat) at 11:00 a.m. this morning, but Karl and I managed to get there by the appointed start time of 1:00 p.m. The crowd seemed to still be growing over an hour and a half after the protest began.

Taking a Knee – Photo: L. Weikel

Taking a Knee

I have to say, I had a hard time joining in on any of the chants. Every time I opened my mouth to raise my voice in protest, that voice failed me. It cracked quite pathetically as I was overcome with a depth of emotion that welled up within me. I felt overcome by the enormity of the injustice and cruelty that’s inflicted on our fellow Americans, just because their skin is darker than mine. How utterly absurd.

One of the most powerful moments, for me, was when the crowd of over (at least) 100 people collectively took a knee and simply held several minutes of sustained silence. It seemed as though even the traffic was muted. The silence was eerie and profound.

A Lovely Moment

I happened to look behind me at one point and was given the gift of witnessing a lovely moment of helping hands and kindness. I’ll let the photo speak for itself.

Loving Helping Hands – Photo: L. Weikel

Support and Solidarity

As traffic continued to flow through the center of town, the vast majority of cars and trucks honked their horns and waved their hands in support, eliciting applause and whoops of solidarity and hope from the protesters filling the square and lining the sidewalks along both sides of Main Street and Court Street. (By the time we left, I’m pretty sure there were at least 200-250 people in attendance.)

And then we engaged in the part of the protest that was, without question, the most profound for me.  Everyone who was able chose to lay prone on the cobblestones or concrete before them. We assumed the position that George Floyd was forced to endure and we maintained that position for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Many of my fellow protesters called out, “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”

“I can’t breathe” – Photo: L. Weikel

I Wept

Yet again, I found myself incapable of joining in with my voice. Instead, I will admit it: I wept. Hot tears flooded into the Covid-mask I wore, and I did indeed find my breath stifled and thick. But the sadness. The sadness just rocked my body as I allowed myself to even for one moment imagine the depth of Mr. Floyd’s fear and pain and disbelief that his life would end in that moment. For what? For nothing. While passersby yelled for his murderers to stop, the pressure continued. Unrelenting. Until it was over. And even then, the pressure continued. Just to make sure, I guess.

Why? Because he was black. Because he was at the mercy of those with the power. Because they could.

The wanton abuse of power in our nation must end. We must use our power to establish much needed and long awaited justice. Vote.

If you live in Pennsylvania, and you haven’t already done it by mail, exercise your power today (Tuesday, June 2, 2020) – and especially in November.

Vote! – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-543)

Risk – Day 565

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Severe Storms Ahead – Photo: L. Weikel

Risk

Watching reports of the protests occurring nationwide in response to the reprehensible acts (or failure to act) of the four Minneapolis Police Department officers that resulted in the death of George Floyd is upsetting enough. But when you stop for a second and realize these protests and marches are taking place in the midst of a global pandemic, in the midst of a virtual plague, the fact that so many thousands of people are willing to put their lives at risk to demand justice speaks louder than any words they could chant.

A couple times today I heard or read someone express surprise that people are in fact gathering in these huge crowds, considering the considerable risk of spreading the coronavirus – particularly given that black and brown people seem to be harder hit, proportionately, than the rest of the population.*

But doesn’t their very willingness to risk exposure to the virus show how desperately our country needs profound systemic reformation – immediately?

What Trumps Who

If we’re honest with ourselves, black and brown lives are at risk no matter what. Sure, if they catch Covid-19, they’re at greater risk of being hospitalized and dying from it. But as things stand now, they’re at risk of being hospitalized or dying simply from being what they are. And yes, I’m consciously saying ‘what’ they are as opposed to ‘who’ they are.

For who they are doesn’t matter in the least. It’s all in the color of their skin, baby. That’s all that matters to far too many people who have access to instruments of power and lethal force, be they cell phones to call 9-1-1 on a ‘black man’ daring to call her out for breaking the rules to guns or choke holds or knees to the neck.

As we’ve nauseatingly seen time and again, people of color are not allowed to be in our country. They’re not permitted to play, or to jog, or to watch birds in the park. They’re not allowed to sleep in their own beds without being subject to lethal force when idiot police try to execute a no-knock search warrant in the middle of the night on the wrong apartment.

Mother Rage

As a mother myself, I cannot imagine the rage and fear experienced by mothers of children of color. And yet my sense that I would not be able to contain my outrage and terror is an indicator of my privilege. Why? Because my sense of justice burns hot for my babies. And yet mothers of black or brown children dare not risk expressing the rage I, as a white person, cannot imagine not expressing.

How do they live with that inexpressible terror and rage, simmering deep within? Any of us who contemplate such ongoing hell know – they can’t breathe. We can’t breathe.

There’s a plague hitting our country all right. While it exists all over the world, it is deep and ugly and pervasive all over the United States, but especially in places of power. And it’s time we  stood up, link our arms, and say in one voice, “NO MORE.”

We’re all brothers and sisters no matter the pigment of our skin. We bleed. We love. We grieve. We breathe.

We must actively take a stand. We must demand systemic reform. We must demand that this scourge be condemned and actively eradicated by those holding positions of power. Now. No more waiting. And if they won’t do it?

Vote. Them. Out.

And if that’s snatched away from us?

Cletus Contemplating the Impending Chaos – Photo: L. Weikel

 

*To be fair, the footage I’ve seen shows the vast majority of protesters wearing masks – and in many places, actually marching and assembling while maintaining some semblance of social distancing, which is no mean feat. This shows respect and reverence for life – theirs and those around them, as well as those with whom they live – which, I suspect is precisely why they’re willing to risk it all.

(T-546)

We Can’t Breathe – Day 563

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Photo: L. Weikel

We Can’t Breathe

This will not be a long post.

I spent the better part of this evening celebrating something wonderful – the third anniversary of my middle son’s marriage to my daughter-in-law Tiffany. We love each other. We maintained safe distance between us and they did not even come into our home. Rather, we sat outside enjoying the smell of freshly cut grass, the flicker of lots of candles on the porch, and the ribets of what must be massive bullfrogs in the pond behind our barn.

We used to be able to see each other often – once a week, if we were lucky. Tonight was only the second time in three months that all four of us were within twelve feet of each other at the same time.

A Realization

But while I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate this anniversary with my family, so many other people are suffering unimaginable and utterly senseless loss. And the thought of what those other people are feeling and experiencing takes my breath away.

I do not say this lightly.  For days and days following my son Karl’s death in 2011, I would find myself feeling as though there was a huge invisible weight on my chest. I’d never felt anything like it – even after my own parents had died. This grief was different.

As I may have written last night, when I watched the video of the incident in Central Park and then saw the still photos (and read the description) of what happened to George Floyd, I started feeling that weight in my chest again. It is as if the world is so heavy and so unimaginably cruel that it’s impossible to take another breath.

The Microcosm and the Macrocosm

After our celebration this evening, I came inside and watched some reporting on MSNBC. I watched the interview by Lawrence O’Donnell of George Floyd’s sister, Bridget Floyd. And I felt that weight again. I saw her shirt with her brother’s last words, “I can’t breathe.”

I remembered the words of the man in NYC, Eric Garner, who also said, “I can’t breathe,” and was killed by NYC police officers.

They are the microcosm. The macrocosm, I realized tonight, is the coronavirus, the root of Covid-19. How do I arrive at that? What are all of the people dying from Covid-19 feeling before they die? “I can’t breathe.” What do they say when they arrive in the emergency departments of hospitals all over the world? “I can’t breathe.” What is the state they are in when they’re put on ventilators? They can’t breathe.

Our world – but in particular our country – can no longer breathe. We are choking on our own injustice, inhumanity, greed, systemic racism, and simple cruelty.

Yes, it hit me tonight. There’s a theme to all of the suffering we’re seeing play out around us and within our homes, families, communities, and countries. We can’t breathe with the continued injustice we’re witnessing and experiencing.

We can’t breathe with the overwhelming cruelty we’re witnessing day in and day out, perpetrated by our supposed leaders and elected representatives. We can’t breathe if their actions truly reflect our hearts. Because there’s no way anyone can breathe and endure this awful, unbelievable, grief.

We must find a way to heal this. I know we can. But first, we must each take a deep breath ourselves. Feel that life force enter our bodies and ask how we can help others breathe, too.

(T-548)

Reprogramming – Day 560

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An idea just pecking its way out – Photo: L. Weikel

Reprogramming

I’m just having a thought – and I want to flesh it out, but I’m not going to have enough time to do it this evening. It’s a sort of weird sense that maybe we’re undergoing a reprogramming.

Ha ha – just rereading that first sentence I have to laugh at myself. “Lisa! You’re having a thought! Good on you, girl! Let’s celebrate!”

Seriously, though. I was just having a brief online conversation with a friend and fellow mesa-carrier. As you may recall, my mesa is my sacred medicine bundle, called a mesa (or misa) in the Q’ero tradition. Anyway, we were talking about the recent suggestion we’d both heard from a respected Paqo (the Q’ero word for shaman or medicine person) that we need to ‘reprogram’ our mesas.

Cosmic Unplug

While I want to contemplate this more extensively for myself, it dawned on me that perhaps at least part of what we’re all experiencing with this pandemic is the equivalent of Spirit unplugging all of us in a huge effort to get us all to re-set ourselves back to a baseline from which we can rebuild a new way of being in the world.

Admit it: how many of us have often freaked the heck out when our computers or cell phones went on the fritz and we couldn’t get them to respond appropriately no matter what we did? In the old days, especially, when these amazing electronic marvels would suddenly stop doing what we were just getting used to them doing, we’d want to melt down ourselves.

“Oh my God, it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg to get this repaired.”

Or “Oh good grief. What if I never get this thing running again? What will I do?”

Miracle Cure

And then our IT person (be it someone literally from the IT department where we work, or – more likely in my case, at least – one of my sons), would ask, “Did you shut it down and restart it?”

We all know, nine times out of ten, that was the Miracle Cure we were looking for.

Well, I’m wondering if the societal ramifications of the coronavirus are forcing us into an involuntary shutdown. Actually, the answer is an obvious yes in a literal sense. Our economies across the world, but especially here, have been forced into a shutdown in order to prevent the spread of the virus.

But I’m wondering if we might benefit from sitting with this concept and playing with it a bit more. How might we choose to ‘restart’ our lives, or what might we want to have our lives look like when we ‘restart’ if this shut down was meant to force us into rearranging the way we think about ourselves. Rethink how we want to BE in the world.

If we were able to reboot ourselves, how would our newly re-ordered internal perceptions line up?

(T-551)

A Second, Scarier, Quarantine – Day 559

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Storm Clouds, Portal of Blue – Photo: L. Weikel

A Second, Scarier, Quarantine

Only one short year ago, I wrote about the Spotted Lantern Fly (SLF), an invasive species that is decimating forests in Pennsylvania and spreading into other states as well. In that post, I discussed the quarantine our state is under and the efforts being made to eradicate this pest. But what I found most stunning when I re-read that post a few minutes ago was my use of the word quarantine – and the weird reality of this second, scarier, quarantine we find ourselves in.

My discussion of the need for us to work together to keep the SLF from spreading seems almost sweetly naïve. I was entreating us all to work together to kill off a bug with no natural predators in order to protect our forests. And of course, I assumed we would.

Surely we would work together to fight against the spread of a ‘bug’ with no natural predators for the good of us all. Right?

Kick Off Summer Right

I don’t need to tell anyone reading this post that Memorial Day Weekend 2020 is on track to be one of the strangest any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. As a direct result of our behavior, it could very well turn out to be potentially the deadliest of holiday weekends as well.

Only time will tell if that relates to humans as well as Spotted Lantern Flies.

I’d prefer to think this is a worse time for SLFs than my fellow two-leggeds, but it will take a lot of work to make it so. That’s especially true if humans feel the need to be petulant and wilful. Especially if we demand that nothing in our lives change in order to keep each other and ourselves healthy and ‘bug-free.’

Do Our Part

There are two ways we can do our part to make things worse for Spotted Lantern Flies than ourselves and our fellow humans.

The first is to make a point to be vigilant when outside, as surely all of us will be this weekend – and throughout the summer – to be on the lookout for the bug we can see: the Spotted Lantern Fly.

Here is a great article I read today encouraging all of us to take up the cause I advocated last year.  As I said then, and as I reiterate now, it takes all of us working together to beat this scourge.

Of course, the second way we can make sure this summer is worse for the SLF than for us humans is to kill (or at least minimize the spread) of the bug we can’t see. We need to use our heads. Not be dumb. The research is out there; it shows just how virulently the Coronavirus spreads through water droplets and aerosol particles that come out of our mouths and noses through coughing, laughing, talking, and singing.

Wear a mask when out in public. Stay away (by at least six feet) from people generally  – but especially from people who don’t care enough about anyone but themselves to wear a mask.

This isn’t a case of freedom. Or liberty. Requiring people to wear masks when it is scientifically proven that masks can prevent up to 80% of the spread of Covid-19 is a simple matter of public health and welfare. The right to live in safety from the spread of a highly communicable disease (that can be carried by people who have no symptoms and may not even know they have it) ‘trumps’ the so-called ‘infringement’ on the right of anyone to refuse to wear a mask.

The rights are not equal. You do not have the right to kill me. Or my friends. Or my relatives. Or even those I may not like or do not know.

Kill the Bugs – Not Each Other

While I’m not a big fan of killing anything, truth be told, I would much prefer we all focus our attention on kicking the need for quarantines of any kind. Let’s kill those Spotted Lantern Flies. (Here’s another link to good info on this.) Let’s also kill the spread of the Coronavirus. Every time we wear a mask we do our part to starve the beast.

Call me naïve, but I do think we can work together to save us all. I’m not liking this second, scarier, quarantine. But let’s hope I’m not writing about a third quarantine next year at this time.

(T-552)

A Loss for Words – Day 558

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A Loss for Words

I know. With everything going on in the world, how could I possibly be at a loss for words?

It’s true though. Sometimes no words are appropriate.

I feel as though the weather outside is mirroring both my feelings and my outlook. Having just taken Sheila out for her evening ablutions, I know it’s murky. Rain poured out of the sky earlier, but now the air just seems to be still and thick. Oppressive.

Gray Day

I took a good long walk today, veering a bit off my beaten path to make it by foot all the way down to my beloved Tohickon Creek. This was before the rains came, so she seemed to be running a bit low. Her bones were showing.

No fish jumped out of the water to snag a bug just above the surface. Come to think of it, I don’t know that I saw any insects. Not a bird could be heard in the treetops, or the fields, and the only ones I actually spied in my nearly six mile walk were two red-tailed hawks sitting in a dead tree two fields away from me and four turkey vultures coasting lazily aloft.

Today felt distinctly different than yesterday, or really any of the other days this week. I’m trying to put my finger on it, and it may just have been the malaise of the weather. Could be.

Summer’s Here

Maybe it wasn’t our country realizing that summer’s unofficial start kicks off this weekend – and absolutely nothing about it is normal.

No matter how angry anyone gets, we cannot tantrum ourselves back to life the way it was six months ago. As every day ticks forward, chances grow – exponentially – that we will know someone who gets sick with Covid-19. Hopefully, they’ll recover.

I needed to be by myself today. I needed to walk. I needed to just be alone in the stillness.

If the forecast for tomorrow is to be believed, I may have to dance between raindrops if I’m to get even the shortest of walks in tomorrow. At this point, I guess, all I can do is keep my eyes open and hope.

Have a wonderful Saturday.

Hope – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-553)

Lazy Bones – Day 545

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Photo: L. Weikel

Lazy Bones

Yep; I’ll admit it. I was a total lazy bones today. I could’ve mowed the lawn. I could’ve walked four miles. I could’ve compromised and walked two!

But no. I stayed inside. I took one look at the wind chill of 35 degrees and through chattering teeth said, “Bag it.” The snow flurries applauded my decision.

Why does 35 degree weather and flurries feel like entirely unreasonable circumstances to force myself to brave during the second week in May, when taking a walk in that very same weather in January is practically considered a balmy opportunity? I haven’t put away my winter garb. I could layer up as easily today as I could five months ago.

Nevertheless, I Balked

I’ll admit it: I balked at the very thought of bulking up and venturing out. And for the life of me, that attitude doesn’t make sense to me. Yet I brandished that same attitude when I (fleetingly) considered mowing the lawn, too. It needs it. But the thought of my feet getting soggy as I mowed amidst flurries was entirely, unequivocally unappealing.

Art House Alternative

Even though I know, deep down, I would’ve warmed up easily once I started walking, I allowed myself the indulgence of staying inside. I even took it one step further. (It’s Mother’s Day weekend – heck – I might as well milk this for all it’s worth!)

One adaptation caused by the Covid quarantining is that the smaller cinemas around us, such as The County Theater and Acme Screening Room are making their films available via Kino Marquee. Check it out! And since we have Roku, it turned out that we didn’t have to watch on our computer – we could watch it on our television. It was a great experience that I know we’ll repeat often.

So Karl and I actually curled up on the couch and watched Beyond the Visible, a documentary about the Swedish mediumistic abstract painter, Hilma af Klint.

Birth of Abstract Painting

What a visually beautiful film – and a fascinating, if maddening, story. Her work undoubtedly would have been received and treated dramatically differently by the outside world had she been a man. The pervasive reality of how women have been relegated to ‘less than’ in so many areas of life, based solely on their anatomy, is tiresome and old.

There are a lot of layers to the story of Hilma af Klint and I sense the film only touches on everything tantalizingly briefly. Somehow, it feels like the Spiritualism of the turn of the 20th century is somehow coming round again to inform our evolution now.

I feel there’s more to explore here on a larger scale. But in the meantime, if you have a chance, check out this film.

(T-566)

Weather is Turning Foul – Day 544

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Photo: L. Weikel

Foul

The weather is turning as foul as predicted. Wind is whipping fat globs of rain and slush through the air like paintball pellets. Hearing the splatter on the windows as I sat down to write, I just realized I forgot to bring in my plants, the ones I’d recently allowed to spend some time outside, ‘on their own,’ encouraging them to reconnect with their feral roots.

OK, phew! I brought everything in. Wow, it’s nasty out there.

This Week

I’d like to welcome all of you to the weekend. It may not feel all that different from the days of the week that you just endured, but I think we all know, for most of us at least, there still remains a psychological difference. Old habits die hard.

And as I write, thunder rumbles.

Even though I love thunder and lightning, thunder can feel ominous – or perfectly in keeping with the milieu of the times. I must admit that’s how it feels at the moment: a perfect, ominous warning.

If anyone felt this week was particularly stressful, I want you to hear me: YOU ARE NOT ALONE! I don’t know if it was the full moon or the culmination of being on lockdown for almost two months, the relentless information, misinformation, lying, and scare tactics we’re bombarded with, or what it is. But this has been a week.

I’ve had a number of people tell me that they’re having trouble sleeping. Even if they succeed in falling asleep, they often find themselves dreaming copiously and restlessly, and often the dreams turn to nightmares.

Early Stretch

It sounds like a good portion of these dreams and nightmares are taking apocalyptic turns. Everything feels momentous these days. We really don’t know what’s coming at us from one day to the next, so it only stands to reason that we play out possible scenarios in our dreams.

Seriously: the mere word pandemic sounds like something that belongs in a Hollywood movie, not the past two months of our lives. And now, with this bizarre push to get the country back up and ‘running’ no matter the cost in human lives, we’re entering a new phase of a national nightmare.

We’ve only just begun learning how to deal with all of this. And yet, we’re almost getting whiplash, trying to keep track of whether ‘the worst is over’ or – more likely – the ‘worst’ has moved to other parts of the country where it appears honesty about testing and infection rates and deaths may not be the highest priority of those calling the shots.

False Sense of Security

My sense is that people all across the country have watched the way New York has handled the initial crush of cases, including the way Governor Cuomo has addressed his constituents (and the rest of the nation) each and every day with facts and emotional fortitude. On some level, even though many find it easy to judge the hell out of them, deep down, we all believe we’re New Yorkers. We felt that on 9/11 and we feel it now. We resonate with the attitude of “New York Tough.”

But I fear the success New York is having in meeting this challenge head-on is creating a false sense of security for the rest of the nation.

The push to get back to an illusory normal is almost certainly ill-advised, especially since the rest of the country (outside of maybe New York and New Jersey) have yet to reach their peak. I have a feeling many of us know that to be true on a visceral level. Much more loss is about to take place, and it’s the stuff of nightmares.

Honesty? Transparency?

And while we hope the governors of the states where numbers are starting to soar (when they deign to reveal those numbers – another tip off that ‘this is not New York’) will put their people first and give them every fact and number and piece of information that will help them make informed decisions for their health and that of their families, if we’re honest, we can see the writing on the wall.

The requisite honesty and transparency are profoundly and horrifyingly lacking.

Perhaps we need to give expression to the terror that courses through our body when we consider how fast and far the Coronavirus is spreading across the country, especially in our nursing and extended care facilities, prisons, and certain factory settings (such as meat packing plants), and other places of congregate living or working. We need to express it so we can release it.

And isn’t that really what this full moon is all about? Letting the light of the full moon shine upon our fears so we can identify them and let them go ?

The first responsibility is to be honest with ourselves. Then we can wake from our nightmares and prevail. Together.

Photo: L. Weikel

(T-567)

Stuck in Neutral – Day 541

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Wild violets – Photo: L. Weikel

Stuck in Neutral

I don’t know what it is. It feels like my brain is stuck in neutral. I’m simply unable to engage in any topic.

Nothing feels right to write about.

We watched only one ‘news’ show this evening and I find myself unable to write about what we learned in that hour. It boggles the mind to realize and admit how ludicrously and deliberately stupid people are behaving – especially the Administration.

I find it difficult even to write about all of this obliquely. I can literally feel my heart start to pound harder and seem to edge closer to my throat.

No Distraction

Quite maddeningly, I sent myself a good five or six photos I took this evening on our walk, but they’ve yet to ‘arrive’ in my email inbox. I’m sure any one of them would’ve provided a welcome distraction to my upset over the state of our country. I’ve run into the problem before (thank you, Verizon Wireless), but tonight’s delay seems particularly considerable.

The distraction that would’ve been provided was the unbelievable panoply of colors in the sky tonight, just as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon. It was as if there were an enormous, uncontrolled fire miles and miles away.

On the one hand, it was an unspoken relief that there was no actual fire, the colors were so brilliant and provocative. But on the other, it begged the observation that our country really is on fire. And that fire is out of control.

Not the Covid virus necessarily. But the willful ignorance about it. How it is spread. How vast swaths of people can spread it around while being completely asymptomatic. How close quarters of any kind are tremendous breeding grounds for its incubation and spread. And how vulnerable we’ve all been made as a result of tests still not being widely and abundantly available. To us. The United States of America.

Pinch Hit

I guess I’ll resurrect some photos I’ve saved on my computer from other days and ask them to pinch hit. I know you don’t necessarily care when I’ve taken a photo. But I like to use fresh photos that capture something of my day each day. It’s become such a part of my process.

This will run late, but I offer it anyway.

Keep up the great work of stopping the spread. At least it would appear that those of us in the Northeast (and I’m being generous including Pennsylvania in that geographic area, but we are  in the coalition of states organized by New York’s Governor Cuomo) have been doing a yeoman’s job of mitigating the spread. Sadly, it would appear others are going to be paying a huge price for both an abundance of arrogance (thinking it was only a problem for the supposed ‘blue’ states) and ceding authority to corporations (such as meat packing plants) that apparently wield so much power that they tell the governments to look the other way. Or else. And get away with it. With the president’s blessing, in fact.

We need to pay attention. This is unsustainable. And it will affect us all.

Spartacus just can’t watch – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-570)

Cycles – Day 537

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Illuminated Willow – Photo: L. Weikel

Cycles

I’m sitting here in my usual spot on our couch. Our front door is open and I can hear a powerful wind whipping through the tops of the 30’ pines across the road. The huge stand of trees is actually dying out, much to the relief of my sinuses, which have been dearly taxed by the pollen that’s wafted from these trees for decades. The quantity of now barren branches of these huge sentinels makes me sad nevertheless. I’m reminded, of course, that everything in life comes down to cycles.

Everywhere we look in our lives, cycles prevail. Indeed, our lives themselves are ultimately the cycles that both drive and haunt us at the same time.

Some cycles are much greater than a simple human life; and by that I mean they play out over periods of time measuring much longer than even the longest of human lives. And of course there are other cycles that begin and end in the blink of an eye.

Endings and Beginnings

Of course, if we’re talking about cycles, then surely we must consider beginnings and endings. Endings and beginnings. We really can’t have one without the other because nothing lasts forever, except eternity, I suppose.

Pine trees have life cycles, as do maples and dogwoods, sycamores and weeping willows.

Recently, while I feel they’ve been staring me in the face almost everywhere I turn, I’ve been contemplating a couple of cycles in particular. It’s fascinating to realize just how unwilling we are to let go of the familiar – even when we know it is both time to do so and ultimately for the best.

Global Scale

I am sure that all of us are capable of pointing to half a dozen cycles we’ve taken for granted in our lives that have been completely upended in the past six weeks or so. Cycles we didn’t even realize were cycles – until they were no more.

One cycle that we’re currently experiencing is actually reflected in the stars. Well, the planets, more specifically – an astrological cycle. And the similarities of configurations that were present in 1918 and are occurring once again in 2020 are remarkable.

It seems to me that it’s incumbent upon us all to learn from the past. If we don’t make a point of learning from and evolving as a result of what’s transpired before, won’t we end up finding ourselves just repeating the same patterns, possibly even mistakes, over and over? Wouldn’t we rather evolve? Isn’t that ultimately the point of life?

Check out this latest astrological Pele Report by Kaypacha. There’s a lot of good stuff in it, including similarities of cycles from 100 years ago, as well as links to other sources. The mantra resonated with me right down to a cellular level. Maybe it will with you, too.

(T-574)