You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare --
Don’t mix them!
You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
For God.
That sounds
Like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let’s start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering our talented friends.
I will help you
With my divine lyre and drum.
Hafiz
Will sing a thousand words
You can take into your hands,
Like golden saws,
Sliver hammers,
Polished teakwood,
Strong silk rope.
You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix
Them!
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Week 1: Coronavirus Quarantine
We just finished our first week -- not even a whole week -- at home together social distancing to flatten the curve, lowering the infection rate of the coronavirus to stave off medical disaster from all of us falling ill at once.
Most things have been shut down now. Restaurants are mostly closed or only doing walk-up or delivery, if they are open at all.
Stores are still open, but some shelves are bare.
I've been out once for groceries. Eric has gone out most days to buy something or other that we need. He gets stir crazy. I am fine nesting and being very grateful at the moment not to need to go out.
The kids are doing well with a new normal of an arbitrary structure of a daily schedule and help from Caroline on Mondays and Wednesdays, some help from Brenna, and some steering from us on the other days.
We've kept up game night and screen days. We fell off the wagon a bit this Sunday and last, watching more tv than we would have otherwise, but both days we worked on puzzles as we watched, so that *almost* counts.
I'm growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of real information. I don't even know what they think the infection rate is here in NM or whether the moves we've taken are helping to flatten the curve.
I work in City govt., yet I know nothing and have heard nothing from leadership since Sarita's email ordering us back to work one more time for "more direction."
I'm still resentful that I was made to feel like I was overreacting when I asked that my team be sent to work from home after APS cancelled school. Yet all the things that I mentioned in my email will soon come to pass as the standard routine, I think.
And I feel stupid carrying that resentment when there's a bigger picture that's much more frightening and warrants our full attention: the potential for this to be months long and millions of deaths in the U.S., thousands of deaths here in Albuquerque.
But even that's not worth worrying about beyond staying home and washing hands and surfaces, since it's impossible to get info about what measures the govtments are taking to build fever centers or even wings in the hospitals so that staff isn't carrying the virus from floor to floor.
Heidi seems lonely. Mom seems ok. Shelle told me Katon had come home from Spain and is under quarantine for 14 days.
I feel so grateful for everyone I know being well, and for being able to work from home, and for kids who still like learning and who aren't tearing each other apart -- yet.
And for Beckett's therapist, who is still coming to the house 5 days a week -- for now.
Heading into week 2, I want to remember more times during the day to take a breath and feel grateful and meditate to bring me back to now. To here. To safety in the ever-present now. For this to be enough.
Most things have been shut down now. Restaurants are mostly closed or only doing walk-up or delivery, if they are open at all.
Stores are still open, but some shelves are bare.
I've been out once for groceries. Eric has gone out most days to buy something or other that we need. He gets stir crazy. I am fine nesting and being very grateful at the moment not to need to go out.
The kids are doing well with a new normal of an arbitrary structure of a daily schedule and help from Caroline on Mondays and Wednesdays, some help from Brenna, and some steering from us on the other days.
We've kept up game night and screen days. We fell off the wagon a bit this Sunday and last, watching more tv than we would have otherwise, but both days we worked on puzzles as we watched, so that *almost* counts.
I'm growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of real information. I don't even know what they think the infection rate is here in NM or whether the moves we've taken are helping to flatten the curve.
I work in City govt., yet I know nothing and have heard nothing from leadership since Sarita's email ordering us back to work one more time for "more direction."
I'm still resentful that I was made to feel like I was overreacting when I asked that my team be sent to work from home after APS cancelled school. Yet all the things that I mentioned in my email will soon come to pass as the standard routine, I think.
And I feel stupid carrying that resentment when there's a bigger picture that's much more frightening and warrants our full attention: the potential for this to be months long and millions of deaths in the U.S., thousands of deaths here in Albuquerque.
But even that's not worth worrying about beyond staying home and washing hands and surfaces, since it's impossible to get info about what measures the govtments are taking to build fever centers or even wings in the hospitals so that staff isn't carrying the virus from floor to floor.
Heidi seems lonely. Mom seems ok. Shelle told me Katon had come home from Spain and is under quarantine for 14 days.
I feel so grateful for everyone I know being well, and for being able to work from home, and for kids who still like learning and who aren't tearing each other apart -- yet.
And for Beckett's therapist, who is still coming to the house 5 days a week -- for now.
Heading into week 2, I want to remember more times during the day to take a breath and feel grateful and meditate to bring me back to now. To here. To safety in the ever-present now. For this to be enough.
Song - All Will Be Well - Meg Barnhouse
Julian, you are holy, you are holding my hand. (x 2)
She said, "All will be well, and all will be well, all manner of things will be well."
I said, "Julian, do you not know, do you not know about:
- sorrow
- pain
- hunger
- shame?"
She said, "All will be well, and all will be well, all manner of things will be well."
I said, "Julian, do you not know, do you not know about:
- loneliness
- disease
- cruelty?"
She said, "All will be well, and all will be well, all manner of things will be well."
She said, "No one does not know, does not know about:
- sorrow
- pain
- hunger
- shame."
She said, "All will be well, and all will be well, all manner of things will be well."
She said, "No one does not know, does not know about:
- loneliness
- disease
- cruelty.
'All will be well, and all will be well, all manner of things will be well.'"
I said, "Julian, you are holy, you are holding my hand. (x2)
And so, All will be well, all will be well; all manner of things will be well."
She said, "Babygirl, do you not know, do you not know about:
- tenderness
- friends
- the Spirit?
- it's only love that never ends and so,
all will be well, and all will be well, all manner of things will be well."
Song - We Shall All Be Known - Karisha Longaker (MaMuse)
Original by MaMuse:
Cover by Thrive East Bay
We shall be known by the company we keep
By the ones who circle round to tend these fires
We shall be known by the ones who sow and reap
The seeds of change, alive from deep within the earth
It is time now, it is time now that we thrive
It is time we lead ourselves into the well
It is time now, and what a time to be alive
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
We shall be known by the company we keep
By the ones who circle round to tend these fires
We shall be known by the ones who sow and reap
The seeds of change, alive from deep within the earth
It is time now, it is time now that we thrive
It is time we lead ourselves into the well
It is time now, and what a time to be alive
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
- Words and music by Karisha Longaker of MaMuse
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Pandemic (poem) by Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
--Lynn Ungar 3/11/20
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
--Lynn Ungar 3/11/20
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