Peace, hope & trust for 2021

Happy holidays, Dear Readers! This post has been a long time coming, my apologies for that. The past four months have been—let’s just say A LOT—and I have struggled with writing on this blog.

Now comes the end of 2020, a year in which so much changed for humanity and our beloved planet. No matter where you were on Earth this year, most likely you felt the changes in myriad ways. We were changed from subatomic to cosmic levels—literally the atmosphere, the air we breathe, the way we live our lives, and the way we see one another all shifted during 2020.

Those we have lost this year have left Earth, but they live on through our memories.

This year we collectively became aware of the presence of death in a whole other dimension than previously. Never before in living history were so many humans taken from their lives on Earth at once as this year. The Covid-19 virus has taken over 1 million, 642,000 people from the Earth this year. Depending on who you talk to, which news outlets and social media sites you read, and what your personal belief system is, this information will affect you in various ways. Regardless, I think we can still agree that an enormous number of souls left the planet, and the sheer number of deaths is a force that humanity has been reckoning with in ways large and small this year.

Along with the natural grief and sorrow that death brings, I believe that having to face so much death this year has forced us to grow up somewhat about this subject, especially in western countries. I live in the United States, which has by far experienced the most infections and deaths from the virus. It seems that death has been a weird, taboo subject for Americans. We don’t like to talk or think about it, and in fact many people spend most of their lives doing everything possible to deny and avoid the subject altogether. Which is really quite strange, considering that it is surely going to happen to every single one of us at some point in our lives. Why then, is there such terrific fear around such a natural process? Everyone is born, lives for a limited amount of time, and then dies. Is it really such a frightening experience? We humans experience death all the time. We squash bugs, run over squirrels, cut down trees, and eat many millions of slaughtered and processed animals every single day. Others hunt for their own food, or raise and slaughter their own poultry, hogs, cattle and sheep. This has been humanity’s way of living for untold thousands of years. Most people don’t even think twice about killing another life in order to further their own. Death is present all the time in the world. Why then, is it so uncomfortable for us to face our own, or that of those we love?

Perhaps you have experienced death during 2020, of someone close to you or someone you knew slightly. Or you read and heard many stories of people who died this year. Some stories were tragic, others were poignant and beautiful. Some died while still quite young, while many who died had lived long lives. Death, like birth, is a uniquely individual experience, and simultaneously a universal one. It is a process, and depending on how it is experienced, can be beautiful and simple, or painful and complicated. Or both. Many of the stories I heard this year mentioned how grateful the narrator was for their beloved and the time they had with those who passed on. The biggest lesson to come out of this year filled with global death, seems to be the lesson of making the most of the time you’ve got while you are alive. Nobody knows exactly how long we’ve got in these physical bodies once we arrive. The absolute best thing we can do with our time on Earth is to make the most of every day. We needn’t do incredible feats to awe the masses (although that’s great too), because I think the whole point of being alive is to appreciate that fact and learn how to love yourself and everyone and everything else.

Dear Readers, I wish you the very best life you can imagine living for the new year of 2021. Appreciate everything, from the moment you awaken in the morning, until you fall asleep at night. See everyone else as your brothers and sisters, both human and non-human. Notice the incredible quality of the sun’s light now as it shines upon us all. Feel reverence for the night sky and all our star families who are helping those of us living on Earth’s surface. Become increasingly aware of the amazing gift we are given to live on this gorgeous planet. Help and love your family, friends, neighbors and those you don’t personally know. We are one family, and have one planet which is our common home. Make the most beautiful life possible for yourself and your beloveds in 2021. Become fearless and love it all.

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Our surreal reality show

Hey dear Readers, how are you all holding up? I have been struggling to find words to describe all the myriad feelings, thoughts and questions which come and go during these peculiar days on planet Earth. Tonight’s blog post will be a bit of a ramble, I’m afraid.

The reality show we call life is becoming ever more surreal with each passing day. One incredulous thing after the next keeps happening, with increasing intensity. More and more, the veils are thinning, and people are awakening to the nightmare we’ve been living under. Dimensionality is bifurcating, which is a crazy way of saying that awakening humans continue to ascend into higher dimensions, or frequencies on the cosmic spectrum of being. I immersed myself in the 10 day live event, The Harmonic Convergence 2020, from July 5 through 14^th. No, I personally did not see starships with my naked eyes as I meditated in the park on the night of the 13^th, although according to the organizers, lots of people did. This didn’t surprise me, however I definitely communed with benevolent and loving beings from some of the star systems in our galaxy. It was the highlight of my summer, given all the factors. Check out this link to learn more about ET contact during the Harmonic Convergence.

After the blissy Harmonic Convergence days, the past week felt like living in a foggy place, which is such a paradoxical feeling! How can one go from feeling so connected to the cosmos, the star nations, and higher realms, to coming down and realizing, “Oh right, but I’m still here in this reality full of Covid fears all around, political chaos and intrigue, and an ever encroaching climate crisis in full swing?” It’s pretty exhausting. Are you also feeling the confusion of this time, dear Readers?

I’ve been paying particular attention to the very bumpy plans for reopening schools here in the United States, and especially in Colorado where I live. The school districts are having a hard time sticking to a plan, since the numbers of people infected with Covid 19 keeps changing like the tides. As an educator who is looking for work right now, I’m especially interested in what school is going to actually look like for fall semester. And it doesn’t look good. There’s a long list of what will need to change to keep students and teachers ‘safe’ in school, and it’s heartbreaking. On the list are things like, No touching. No sitting in groups. All students must face one direction in separate desks. Masks are required, and highly encouraged for the youngest students. This means students and teachers won’t be able to easily read facial expressions, nor see smiles or laughter, scared or tearful faces. Schools up until now have been prioritizing Social Emotional Learning, which in my mind requires being able to clearly read other people’s faces, body language, and to touch each other when that is needed. How do school administrators expect young students to not play together, hug their teacher, or get along well in such a sterilized, anti-human environment?

It’s a conundrum. Perhaps one of the saddest items on the Forbidden list is “No Singing.” Whaat??  They might as well just flatly state: NO FUN for the school year 2020-2021. Because with what they’ve got planned, that is exactly what school will feel like for most. Teachers are afraid (some admitted they are terrified) of returning to classrooms this fall. Parents are confused and many don’t feel they have enough information yet to make the critical decision of whether to send their kids back into school buildings or keep them home and sacrifice in-person learning. Still others have no choice—the spring was a bust, and they need their kids to go back to school and be there all day for economic reasons.

There is no clear path forward during this pandemic for the majority of us. Those of us (myself included) who prefer making a plan and carrying it out, are confounded by current events. What are some of the major life lessons of this time? The old rules no longer apply. What used to work for getting by in life doesn’t work anymore. What once felt stable and reliable no longer exists. Our government leaders don’t have many answers, and many have shown their true colors as extraordinarily incompetent. Life feels more uncertain, and in some ways dangerous, than ever before for many people. The future is wide open for interpretation. Therefore, besides being extremely disconcerting, the moment we find ourselves in is also strangely exhilarating. Because it’s like the I-Ching hexagram—Great challenge is also great opportunity. For those who are visionary, brave, and creative enough, this may be our species’ defining moment moving forward. How do we want our lives on Gaia to be in five, ten, fifty years? Will we stand for authoritarian rule to become the norm in previously democratic societies? Will we choose to create a dystopian future world that nobody wants to live in? Or, will enough of us wake up just in time to stop the madness that is plainly on display by world leaders, and create a healthy, just and joyful future world for everyone? We are on the precipice of major changeover. What do you think? Where do you stand? What kind of future world do you wish for your children’s children?  These questions matter. If you haven’t taken the time to consider them deeply, now would be a perfect moment to do so. Thoughts are things, they create our reality. What reality show would you prefer to be living in?

It’s finally time for big, structural change

image via commondreams.org

Dear Readers, usually I am careful on this blog to avoid sounding strident or provocative to the point where some of you won’t bother to read it. But today I feel that I must speak out about the absolute urgency of our common crisis moment here in America.

The Covid-19 pandemic has devastated the American economy during the past six weeks. Congress has passed several unprecedented economic recovery bills, which they touted as helping everyday Americans and especially small businesses to get through the emergency intact. Yet, it is coming out into the public that a large percentage of the billions of dollars designed to help small businesses and their employees, is instead (once again) lining the pockets of corporations and billionaires who are siphoning off the money from the ones who cannot survive without it. Read the Forbes magazine article  here.

“We’re not going to be able to check all the loans before they go out the door because there’s over 26,000 of these loans, but before we forgive these loans, we’ll check every single one over $2 million,” Mnuchin pledged on Tuesday. “I encourage everybody to look at this and pay back these loans now so we can recycle the money if you made a mistake.”

More than 220 public companies have applied for at least $870 million in small business loans, according to data analytics firm FactSquared.

Under the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, The Paycheck Protection Program was originally allocated $349 billion for emergency small business loans, but that funding was quickly exhausted amid overwhelming demand that has often caused glitches in the system. Despite weeks of controversy around the PPP, another $310 billion was injected into the program thanks to the latest $484 billion coronavirus relief bill passed last week. “–Forbes magazine

Among ALL of the immense lessons Covid-19 has been teaching us, this particular one is definitely in the top 3 for people to pay attention to. We watched as giant corporations consolidated their wealth during the 2008 Great Recession. We saw predatory companies buy up smaller ones, including many banks. During the past 12 years, wealth consolidation by the wealthiest corporations and CEOs has gone from terrible to inconceivable. It is inconceivable that literally a handful of humans’ net worth is more than well over half of the population of the United States combined. Let that sink in for a moment.

www.forbes.com/forbes-400

Further reading:  https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/27/no-were-not-all-together-how-super-rich-are-cheating-america

Watching the news spectacle coming from Washington DC each day during the pandemic, many of us feel by turns angry, frustrated, sad, devastated, or perhaps even resigned to the ineptness and absurdity we are hearing from the POTUS and his administration. One author from Ireland commented about it this way (from Commondreams.org) :

The gifted Fintan O’Toole offers a fresh, brilliant, devastating perspective on a time when the sense of America as a great country “has all but evaporated.” Now the epicenter of a pandemic, he describes a nation “locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity,” he writes. “It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – willfully, malevolently, vindictively, often in the recurring horror show of briefings in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV.” 

The question most of us wonder is, Where do we go from here? When will the citizens finally awaken out of the nightmare of what life in America has become for the majority of us? Isn’t it way beyond time to open our eyes and squarely face the obscenity of unbridled greed and power-mongering being flaunted right before our faces? And then say:  NO MORE. EVER AGAIN. The hundreds of millions of people who continue to suffer due to monstrous inequity by the power elite deserve better. The Covid-19 pandemic is showing us our collective neuroses like never before.  May we each have the deep courage and strength to finally, creatively, and loudly point it out, protest, petition our members of congress, and most importantly, to vote for real, structural change to the status quo. The criminals must be permanently stopped, and the time is NOW.