2nd week of isolation March 2020

March 23rd

Monday morning; winter again! Silent except the spring birds who don't seem to mind the change in weather

I am on the farm still, trying to decide what next. Dad died in January and I am slowly getting used to life without him. This winter I've been relatively contented with dreaming about vegetable garden, starting seeds, experimenting with sourdough baking and other hobbies with occasional bouts of social consciousness.

Last Thursday morning here she is!!

Morgan drove home from Texas last week and is self isolating in her trailer and the downstairs apartment here. We are still communicating by phone mostly although we've conversed at a distance outside a few times... it is too cold for extended conversations outside.


I was supposed to be hiking the Bruce Trail from March 14th to 27th on the first segment of an End to End fundraiser for the Bruce Trail Conservancy. We got 4 days and 90 kilometers in before the BTC cancelled all events and organized hikes, our included. This is only a postponement for us, hopefully we'll be able to continue soon and finish this summer.

This global pandemic which is causing us to contract our physical mobility is making me think about all the people I know farther away and that I have not connected with in a long time.

Words and talk

"Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs."

Pearl Strachan Hurd  (1930's British politician)

"Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club" by Megan Gail Coles 

Just finished reading this haunting, heartbreaking book. I chose today's quote because words can be weapons that are manipulated by cowards to victimize and abuse people. Words are many times over more insidiously and overtly dangerous than weapons, yet we use them carelessly; tossing them out without thought of where and how they might land. And if we are called out for this we justify ourselves with more words. Like: people are too sensitive ...the "sensitive" ones are to blame for being hurt by our words. Yup, and the more we "desensitize" ourselves by blaming the target the more words we can use because hey, its not our fault if someone gets hurt, we are entitled to free speech too. Humbug! Free speech is a privilege to be used wisely, not an entitlement to carelessly utter without a care to the impact. The old saying "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me" is bullshit. We can make ourselves numb to words, we can hide our hurt so often it becomes a habit, we can drown out everyone else with our own words, but the pain is still there and it takes more courage to face and acknowledge it than it does to be a coward who blusters our way by using our words to belittle anyone or anything that is different or thinks differently than ourselves. Respecting other people no matter how different they are and allowing them the dignity to be themselves is the only way we can deserve that respect and dignity we feel should be ours. That does not mean accepting abuse or victimization, it means understanding that those are symptoms and focusing on the symptoms without addressing the causes is perpetuating the weaponizing of words that are creating widening chasms between people. Time for change and change starts within all of us. Courage my friends!!

“Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows.” 

Native American Proverb  

Sharper Wits = Magic

“The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”

Eden Phillpotts  

So if the magical things are there waiting for us to discover them and all we have to do is sharpen our wits to make these discoveries why do we live each day stuck in the sloggy, mucky, murky puddle of what we believed was possible yesterday? Our wits are weighed down like boots clomping in clay getting heavier each step, as our familiar convictions get stronger and crush any budding idea that may challenge what we think we know until we are so deeply entrenched we can't even imagine a way out of our hole let alone see the magic.

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/180918110017354076/

Here's a quote I've shared before from Lewis Carrol's book about Alice in Wonderland. I think the world would be a very different place with a lot more magic if we all did this exercise every day. 

"There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  

There is controversy over the Author: Eden Philpotts relationship with his daughter. Here I have to check in on myself because I usually choose not to use a quote from a source if I read there is public information about abuse they may have committed. I will never condone it, but there is nothing black and white about anything and relationships especially. I don't know if any of us is absolved from abuse and responsibility lies with a society that barely cloaks its own abuse and covers it up or justifies it with religion or colonization or politics or economics. Bullying breeds bullying. 

Dancing and Insanity

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

This quote is often attributed to Fredrich Nietzsche although it is not proven and there are others. George Carlin included, he used this saying in his book "Brain Droppings" (a potential resource for other quotes)

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

Henry David Thoreau

It takes really deep listening to hear our own music, our own personal drummer. When we are busy judging everyone we can't hear anything else, and our own music fades into a whisper that gets fainter and fainter with each judgement we make. When we judge others (and ourselves), we understand that we are being judged. Judging is "ubiquitous". We hear people judging (our parents, our society, our politicians, our history books, our teachers, our friends...) and it is addictive because it means we don't have to do anything other than call something bad or good and by merely doing that we belong to our tribe that sees right and wrong the same way. We don't have to think for ourselves and we learn to quell our curiousity and questions. The act of making a judgment is our action and this action becomes a habit and also spreads because people like to be part of a group and it is more acceptable to agree than to buck the norm. Judgement is like a novel virus, with its insidious contagion and spread, that has caused its own global pandemic that will keep us at war forever.

A judgement is not an opinion. It says something is right or wrong. It doesn't say "That's weird, I'm curious about why someone would do something like that?" or  "wow, I don't understand but that must have taken a lot of courage" or "Hmmm, interesting dance! Here's an opportunity for me to learn something" or "That is cruel and innocent people are getting hurt how can we change the underlying system that is causing this?" or "What kind of pain and fear is someone dealing with to need to be a bully to survive?" or  "this is scary, I am afraid of what's happening! There must be other people who feel like I do maybe if I speak someone will hear the music I am dancing to" or an infinite other possible ways to learn and do something about what we care about.

A judgement is an absolute shutdown of anything other than "black" or "white" and absolves us of responsibility of looking for the issue (of which we may be a part), absolves us from having empathy, from learning and expanding our outlook, from doing the work of soul searching to find what we really believe, and from doing any other hard thing that might challenge us to change, grow and face our fears.

Maybe we could stop judging and start listening and having conversations that allow us to learn and cooperatively innovate and create and build acceptance that what we don't understand and what we fear is our biggest opportunity to dance with life ... 

Judging is distracting from real issues and is creating deeper fissures in our society and provides no answers because it allows no questions.

An Example from this week's news 

"Justin Trudeau was wrong to join the protesters in a pandemic when he is supposed to be the example of staying out of crowds". 

Yet if he did not join them what is the message from our Prime Minister and government about murder by the system designed to uphold our laws, about racism and about the complicity of silence in perpetuating racism and suppression of people because of the colour of their skin?

In my opinion, this would be a very difficult decision for someone to make. Knowing he was going to be judged no matter what he did.

Well what if he was wrong or what if he right?? How does this affect you and me?? 

We can and are contorting ourselves analyzing Mr. Trudeau's actions but basically we are stuck in our habit of judging and if we are looking for something to make a person wrong about we will find it, and if we are looking for something to make people right about we will find it... 

And who are we to judge someone following their own drummer?

There are opinions about everything these days, a cacophony of conflicting messages. If we were watching the dances what would we see??

The Jerk: Jerky, contorting, twisting 

The Serpent: Sinuous, slithering around, under and over 

The Robot: Repetitious, limited movements 

The Dreamer: Freeflowing and graceful, ephemeral. Like dust in the wind 

The Dictator: Power hand pumping, elbow jabs and deep squat steps knocking over anything in its way

The Thinker:

The Empath:

The Lemur: Photo by Shannon Wild

https://www.catersnews.com/stories/animals/i-like-to-move-it-move-it-lemur-shows-off-dance-moves-to-photographer/

“Greatness is hearing your truth and speaking it no matter how your voice shakes.” Mel Robbins