Winter Solstice 2020: 2020 was Different

Today we live out the longest night of the longest year of our lives. The sun will come out tomorrow.  May we start to see it.

Some challenges:

1.    The fragility of our health and the reality of death is staring at us in a way it wasn’t last year. But maybe, just maybe, facing death can help us to better appreciate Life.

2.      We’re not meant to be distant from each other.  We’re social beings.  We’re meant to hug, to hold one another’s hands through the tough times, and to come together when life gets hard. But maybe, just maybe, each of us can find that Strength Within when Distance is commanded.

         3.      We’re watching destruction all around.  Our businesses are getting destroyed; our entire educational system is getting dismantled; our excursions, hobbies, travel, and sources of entertainment and leisure are all crashing down. But maybe, just maybe, we can build something new.  We can’t grow a new tree until the old one is cut down. 

 Reflecting on all this, I think about these blessings:

1.      God is cleansing our planet.  We were clearly doing a crappy job of caring for our planet, so our loving Divine source needed to do it for us!

2.    We are reflecting within ourselves like never before.  We're learning, we're growing, we're finding our inner strength.

3.     We’re discovering what Life really is about and what it really means to us.

4.      We’re connecting with people from all over with a technology – Zoom – some of us never knew existed, and now we’ll happily keep using it!

5.      We’re cleaning house, so we can start all over.  Our country is cleaning house (thankfully!), our communities are cleaning house, our businesses are cleaning house, our schools are cleaning house, our own homes are cleaning house, and we are cleaning “house” each within ourselves.

6.      We’re slowing down!  The Prophet Daniel was given a dream – a nightmare, in fact – of a time when people will be “running to and fro and knowledge will increase” (Daniel 12:4).  A much later set of prophets – OK, musicians, Simon & Garfunkel – saw the same thing: “Slow down. You’re moving too fast.  You’ve got to make the morning last.”  We’re no longer running to and fro.  We’re learning how to slow down.  Maybe, just maybe, we’ll start to make the morning last.

 * * *

On a personal note, after a rough pandemic start at their schools, both of our kids and their schools rose to the occasion, and they’ve closed out 2020 with strong success at school, in their lives, and, thankfully, with the needed connections with their friends.

 My husband made it back to work in August, thankfully, where he can do his job as a School Psychologist properly, by working with students in person to evaluate them for services.  His many gigs were cancelled, but his band did manage to put out two great zoom videos.  You’ll especially get a kick out of kick in the head.

When you're smiling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnIg9-hN724

 Kick in the Head (COVID-19 Spin-off)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm5ovF5UfSg

     Never could I have guessed when I applied for, and received, a quarter-long sabbatical in the spring of 2019 for the spring of 2020 that I had picked the ideal time to go on sabbatical.  I had been looking forward to having the house to myself during my sabbatical for my creative projects.  Ha!  That didn’t happen!  I was also intending to use the time to work on my spiritual quest novel, Just like Eve, but couldn’t get into the spirit of fiction during the pandemic, so I wrote a series of pandemic posts, my paradoxical childhood story from Sao Paulo to San Jose, and finally(!) just returned to the fiction (explained here).

     In the fall, I advocated for hybrid instruction (with, of course, masking and distancing for the 2 days/week in class) for my students and never would have imagined how hard that advocacy would turn out to be, but I’m grateful I succeeded.  Due to the need to full-class zoom for a week at a time a few times, our class met face-to-face only about a dozen times.  But for those few in class sessions, my students were filled with gratitude, and the hard work of my advocacy was well worth it.  

     While 2020 was different, we have all learned much and have grown stronger.  May 2021 be equally as lovely. Virtual hugs to all!

Oh, What a Whirlwind we're in!

        Shhh!  Don’t tell.  My very first post.  I find myself spiraling back and upward, like a DNA molecule, to the myriad of themes emerging out of my twilight zone. 

 

(photo by phys.org)

The spirals are so numerous I think I’ll start a “Spiraling Back” series.  (Sorry, Just like Eve readers, this whirlwind is still too big for the creativity of fiction, but I will “spiral back” to it when the winds slow down; if you’d like to hunt down a publisher for me, then perhaps I could return sooner . . . ? 🤔)  I’ll begin with my very first post and all three of its images: the fast-moving “freight train” of information, my “eyes of paradox” (one near-sighted, one far-sighted), and the movement toward whispering, careful speech.  

Image 1: The fast-moving freight train

           Shhh! Don’t tell explained this fast-moving train like a college lecturer speaking so fast you, a student, can’t keep up to take notes.  You had agreed to take notes for some absent classmates, but you gave up, told them the lecture was too fast, and they were on their own. 

I’m now trying to keep up with another freight train speeding along at record speeds.  Nothing adds up, but information – some useful and some really off and very distracting – is blowing in like hurricane.  With all this debris of information flying everywhere, which do we grab hold of, and which do we let go?  Friends, the answers are not at all obvious.

Too many think they know which nuggets of information to trust and which to distrust, but they might be making those decisions based on either a “False Authority” fallacy or an “Ad Hominem” fallacy.  These logical fallacies are opposites, so let me explain them:

A False Authority fallacy is the belief that a statement must be true just because Reliable Person said it.  Perhaps Reliable Person is an authority, but just because Reliable Person said it does not necessarily make it true.  Reliable Person has to provide strong, accurate, reliable evidence for his or her statement in order for it to be trustworthy.  Therefore, a False Authority fallacy does not necessarily mean the speaker is not an authority; instead it means the statement cannot be trusted just because the speaker said it.  Genuine evidence is necessary. 

The classic False Authority is truly false: "Celebrity says solar flares are harmless." However, a subtle type is a Non-sequitur (it does not necessarily follow) type of False Authority: “NASA says solar flares are harmless.”  NASA, of course, is a genuine authority for such a statement.  Without evidence, however, its logic is incomplete. A good listener should ask why NASA says that and what evidence NASA has for such a statement.  (BTW, NASA hasn’t said this; I made it up for the purpose of the analogy, and I purposely chose a respected national agency who I myself trust.)

An Ad Hominem fallacy is the opposite: it believes a statement must be false because Unreliable Person said it.  Maybe Unreliable Person is reliable, and has genuine evidence for X, but is getting demonized 😅 for something she stated (perhaps in jest) about Y.  Are we not to listen to her evidence on X because something from unrelated Y, taken out of context, condemns her?

Or, perhaps Unreliable Person really is unreliable.  Does that mean that everything that person says is false?  What if Unreliable Person brings forth reliable evidence?  Shouldn’t we take a look at that evidence?

 Think about these two questions also:

1.     Has Person, who is being presented to you (or you think is) either Reliable or Unreliable, provided evidence?  Has Person provided it accurately, based on your own fact-checking through the original data or the original source? 

2.    Are you seeing the full evidence in full context of Person, who is being presented to you (or you think is) either Reliable or Unreliable?  Perhaps Person is Reliable, but is being presented as Unreliable, and Person’s strongest evidence has been eliminated from what you’re seeing.  Have you checked the original source?

Image 2: Eyes of Paradox

           As noted in “Shhh! Don’t tell,” I have anisometropia, or what I call “eyes of paradox,” a slightly near-sighted left eye and a fairly pronounced far-sighted right eye.  In certain ways, like trying to read anything from the Internet on my cell phone, or trying to hit an overhead in tennis, my condition is a nuisance.  No set of eye-glasses can give me perfect vision, so I do the best I can, while taking advantage of its benefits, like being able to see road signs far in advance.  “There it is, coming up, next Exit, you’ll need to stay in the right-most lane of the fork,” I tell my husband when we’re on a busy freeway.  Astonished, he exclaims, “You can read that?!”

           Although they’re usually a nuisance, I’m proud of my eyes of paradox.  My life has been about paradox, starting in childhood.  I often imagine my angels are upstairs laughing, playing a joke on me, as I think they did with my eyes.  She’ll be all about paradox; she’ll see nothing but paradox, so let’s give her eyes of paradox!  That my more pronounced eye is far-sighted is also not lost on me.  As I watch the world, life, everything, I see things much more in far-sighted vision than near-sighted.  Right now, I’m seeing everything in paradox, and I’m seeing more of it with the far-sighted eye.

           Let’s consider Highly Unreliable Person, a person I do not trust at all.  If I had not already been investigating X through credible sources, I might respond to what Highly Unreliable Person is saying like everyone else: Highly Unreliable Person thinks X; therefore, X must be false.  But what if X is true?  It’s a paradox. I want to think Highly Unreliable Person can never be trusted.  In our whirlwind, nothing is that simple.

            Paradox accepts that there is no one size fits all.  Maybe a particular treatment will work well for you; maybe it won’t.  Each treatment comes with effects, some of which are more risky for some than others because our bodies are all different.  This should be a decision between each patient with his or her own doctor.

             Likewise, perhaps a particular preventative measure will help you because you have a weak immune system and could be assisted by it.  Perhaps  that same measure could set back another person who has spent years building up his own natural immunity.  For that person, the same preventative measure that helps you is like the boulder that he, Prometheus, has to roll back up a mountain.

           Here’s another paradox: the stay-at-home order that fits my own zen leanings, but jeopardizes the needs of those on my heart, the youth.  I’ve just posted It Still Takes a Village on the youth, so I won’t repeat that here; I’ll just say that what is trying for the youth -- to slow down and remain in place -- is actually refreshing to me.  These are just a couple of paradoxes, but in our whirlwind, the paradoxes are legion.

Image 3: Shhh! Careful speech

           Through this pandemic, my family has chosen to do “Family Movie Nights,” rotating each of us to choose a film and a couple of nights ago, at my request, we watched Karate Kid 2, my favorite of these because in this part, one of my all-time favorite of film characters is the star: Mr. Miagi.  This little man doesn’t look tough, he doesn’t say much, and he’s quirky – he tries to catch flies with chopsticks!  But no strong man, nor crowd of them, armed or not, can defeat this guy.  And even if his phrasing is as quirky as his habits, when he speaks, you’d be wise to listen.

             After a period of silence, a moment tends to arise when one is released to speak.  Another spiral up into the next rung for me on this theme comes from 2013.  I had been advocating for my students to “rise into voices of power for the sake of good,” and at the start of 2013, I began praying the same for myself. In early April, I faced quite a challenge for an instructor at the start of a new quarter: I lost my voice for two weeks.  The Spirit whispered, I will give you a voice of power, but I first have to take away your voice.  (If you glance at my Blog Archive and the posts per year, you’ll also see when my blog voice dropped off for a few years.)

            A year ago, the Spirit surprised me with another whisper: I’m positioning you to be that voice, so I’ve permitted a distraction to you for a test.  Will you be distracted, or will you be a voice of power?  A year later, I’d say the answer has been both.  Thankfully, not only I, but those relevant, following the divine forces, have shown restraint, opening the door for me to emerge into this voice, beginning with my successful advocacy on behalf of Oregon college students.  For now, the whispers repeat the counsel to emulate Mr. Miagi: be humble, simple, silent, restrained, and be ready when the moment arrives to move or speak.

(8/12 update: I hope to have the chance to be silent for quite some time now. A voice is very difficult.)

(photo by portcitywire.com)

Should we always listen to Reliable Person?  Should we never listen to Unreliable Person?  Oh, what a whirlwind we’re in!  To properly discern, we need to examine the evidence for ourselves through our Inner Authority.  To trust our Inner Authority, we need to free ourselves from fear, anxiety, anger, and lower nature desires. Once we do, our Inner Authority is remarkably reliable.  Here’s a doctor who studies, examines, questions, tests, and listens to her Inner Authority, and suggests we do the same.  As a triple board certified Internal Medicine physician, she fits “Reliable Person.”  But even she encourages us not to take her word for it, nor the word of the many speaking another narrative, but to examine the evidence for ourselves through our Inner Authority.

© 2020 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.

It Still Takes a Village to Raise a Kid

It takes a village to raise a kid.

Some kids are abused at home.

Some kids are suicidal.

Don’t pull the village from the kid.

           I’m a teacher, a parent of kids in school, and a liberal, and all I’m reading in the articles or on social media is “Go all on-line!”  And the calls for it are missing what really matters: the Village it takes to raise our kids.  Yes, all of our kids – not just mine and yours, but all of our kids: the abused kids, the suicidal kids, the struggling kids, the special needs kids, the second language kids, the at-risk kids.  It takes a Village to raise them.  And for many of them, that Village is at school.

             We don’t have to do full school at school.  We can do hybrid.  That’s what I’m pushing for – some time in person, face to face (F2F), to make that personal connection, for students to see on our faces our compassion, our belief in them, and our in person skills to help them succeed.

             I hope we can think beyond the virus and instead of asking our kids to be “resilient,” become as wisely as we can the resilient Village our kids need us to be.  Yes, we’ll wear masks.  Yes, we’ll distance ourselves.  And, yes, we need Small Class Sizes!

             I’ve seen too much first-hand among my students, my own kids, and their friends to not speak out for the Village.  Thankfully, I don’t know whether I’ve successfully prevented any suicides among any of my students, because none of the ones showing signs who I helped made that drastic choice.  But I do know I’ve helped the mental health of quite a few of them, as many have thanked me for it.  One in five college students contemplates suicide, and the numbers for high schoolers is about the same.  I’ve studied the signs to look for, I’ve seen them, and I’ve taken steps to help students get the help they need.

             Could I support needed mental mental health if I taught all on-line?  Perhaps, but not as well.

             Could I teach as effectively all on-line?  No.  Definitely not.

             Could I reach at risk students as effectively all on-line?  No, of course not.

             Might some of my colleagues be much more effective than me if they are all on-line?  Absolutely.  Some of them are excellent all on-line.  I am not.  I’m strict with high standards.  My students need to see my face, with my compassion, with my belief in them, with me physically rooting them on, and with me inspiring them to heights they didn’t think they could achieve.

             I teach college writing mostly for incoming freshmen who are going into the math and sciences.  They don’t like writing and they don’t think they can do it.  But when they see my face rooting them on, they do.  They succeed.

            If I’m all on-line, I could not garner that kind of success.

             I want to see my students succeed – as students and as young people in all the emotional turmoil of adolescence.  By studying the human brain, neurologists have discovered that adolescence doesn’t end until age 25.  What do neurologists and psychologists say adolescents need?  Social interaction – a lot of it.  Clearly, they cannot have nearly the social interaction they need during this pandemic, but we can support both their education and their mental health by giving them some in-person instruction.

             I know many teachers also want to be in the classroom.  But most of them are silent among the screams.  We can all agree that teachers who want to be on-line should get that chance.  Now, let us please also agree that teachers who want to teach in person should also get that chance.

             Finally, I am in full agreement on this: “No teacher should be forced to teach in person.”  True.  Teachers, if you don’t feel comfortable in the classroom, then ask to teach on-line, and you should be granted that.

             But why are we not hearing this?  “No teacher should be forced to teach on-line.”  It took me seven weeks and two Associate Deans agreeing with me to finally be granted the chance to teach in the classroom twice a week this coming fall for my interdisciplinary classes.  If I was not well established in my values, and if I did not have strong rationale that my students need some face-to-face (F2F) instruction, and if I was not teaching interdisciplinary classes for students recruited outside my field by those who also want F2F, I would be like many of my colleagues: A teacher who wants to teach F2F and is being forced to teach on-line.  Friends, we need to have that conversation also.  

             Friends who want us in the classrooms, please speak this counter message among the screams:

It Still Takes a Village to Raise a Kid

So let those of us who want to be physically part of that Village

Be that Village

Update 7/23: The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees.

 Also see Dr. Z's objective video on the AAP statement.

(c) 2020 by karina.  Please use with permission or with a citation to this blog.

Cocoons and Koans through the Pandemic

            As noted in TheWay of Zen through the Pandemic, my perspective on our moment is unique.  For one, it fits into the consciousness shift I’ve been mulling over.  Realize we are offered many “shifts” or “cocoons” for metamorphosis, not just one; however, this moment when each of us is in our own cocoon is special.

            Our pandemic did not begin easy for me, but now with my family all safely at home, I’ve been calling my own time in it “Zen-ing,” apt not only for my solitary meditation, but also for what the Zen masters often did: puzzle over a koan.  Our pandemic is a koan within a koan within a koan, and the deeper we enter into each koan, the more koans we discover.

            Meanwhile, our pandemic may be collective, but our experience with it is not.  This morning, I made a momentary hop onto social media to post this:

I introduced it with this: “What’s more is that each hurricane also looks and feels different and is stirred up by a different cause.”

The purpose of this post is not to explore the storms, but before I continue, I wish to affirm that we each have one or more, to varying degrees, and the source of our own storm may come directly from the pandemic or indirectly from the collective response to it.  Among the many koans of our pandemic is this one: the storm many people are facing is creating a different storm for many others.  Consider, for example, those who, even before the pandemic, were already victims of domestic violence.  While we may practice our freedom of speech to our authorities, I hope we can free our fellow citizens to face their own storm in their own way.

            The meme that opens this post is now going viral for two reasons: (1) our planet is in a collective cocoon moment right now and (2) it expresses the emerging value of evolution and transcendence.  The butterfly is encouraging the caterpillar to become like him.

The storm we are each in, whatever it may be for each of us, is the Test of the Cocoon.  Cocoons are hardly secure; they’re like crucibles.  For the creature that begins as a caterpillar and finishes as a butterfly, the creature’s greatest moment of suffering and his greatest test is in the cocoon.  His greatest triumph is also when he emerges as a butterfly.

            Tragically, some are likely to get pounded by the cocoon and emerge as very wounded caterpillars, very understandably so.  How might each of us emerge?  Will we come out triumphant as butterflies?

            We can consider our transition from Pisces to Aquarius as a framework for this metamorphosis, and those of you who are drawn to the shift of the Ages are welcome to read it this way.  If you are not, simply take these as metaphors and as a framework to consider our evolving paradigms.  I’m using the Ages not only because many are witnessing this transition, but also because their symbols are so fitting to describe the distinctions of our current, older consciousness with the emerging one, led by the remarkable discoveries of Quantum Physics and Quantum Mechanics.

            Let’s start with Pisces and its symbol:

            Notice we have a perfect duality: two fish swimming against each other in the turbulence of water.  Conflict.  In every spiritual tradition, water represents danger, emotion, and turbulence.  When you add two fish swimming against each other in that turbulence, you have the scariest Age of them all. 

This is why in Pisces, we “focus on the family” and vow to our partners to stay together “till death do us part.”  In Pisces, the only way we humans can survive is to establish ourselves into a stable home.  Pisces is so turbulent that some cannot even do this; however, many can at least survive their incarnation into Pisces if, at least, they can establish stability for themselves in their home.  Most people, therefore, when they are pre-planning their lives in that pre-incarnation time (see Michael Newton), will plan into their lives the chance to meet their “truest love” in their youth, ensuring they marry the “right” “one.”  And in Pisces, a single “right” “one” is possible.  In Aquarius, an Age that values evolution and movement from caterpillars to butterflies, just one “right one” will be unlikely.  There may instead be one “right one” for each phase between cocoons.  But that’s for another post.

For now, we’ll return to the Pandemic and move to our Piscean Posterchild, Dr. Fauci.  Fauci wins this prize not because his face coincidentally looks like a fish, but because of his sober authority look: “I’ve got this.  Listen to me.”  Notice how he cocks his head up, and his eyes, serious and direct; his jaws, firm and set; and his fixed head and face, stoic, rarely moving – an ideal Piscean authority figure.  In Pisces, this is exactly what draws us to an authority; we trust unwavering stoicism because we think that will help us survive our turbulence.

He also holds the skill to both terrify us and comfort us at once.  In Pisces, we are drawn to terror, but we long for comfort.  And he does both: his somber, serious summaries are complemented with his comforting words that if we follow his advice, we’ll make it through.

Finally, notice how he exudes scientific authority with his numbers and his expertise, while presenting an objective middle ground.  “Perhaps if . . .” he’ll begin, giving us a glimmer of hope; “however, . . .” he’ll continue with his cautious warning. 

Fauci’s seeming objectivity gives us a koan within a koan.  Catch what he does not include: (a) critical advice for what we need to do to boost our immune system and (b) a genuine scientific interpretation of the data.  Regarding our immune system, I not only marveled about this omission of health authorities in my first pandemic post, I cited five journal articles pointing to the very well-established science of the most critical factors to boost our immune system: positive mental health, lowstress, exercise, sunshine, and, also from the sun, Vitamin D.  The experts the media is citing, led by our Piscean Posterchild, are not only not telling us the most important things we can do to protect ourselves against a virus, they are encouraging the systematic removal of these very essentials. 

A genuine scientific examination of the data would admit the full picture and any critical context, such as the country with the highest mortality rate from the plain old common flu, at an astonishing 9%: Italy.  We don’t hear that; we just hear “we’d better not go the way of Italy” in this pandemic.  We also don’t hear that the percentage of severe cases among “confirmed cases” is a scientifically invalid number.  Confirmed cases need tests; tests are in short supply; tests are being rationed for sicker people; therefore, the percentage of severe cases among those “confirmed” is bloated.  The experts all know the number is invalid, and they admit it when they’re pressed on it, but they don’t say so in their speeches.

Quite a few objective physicians are speaking of the full picture, but the media is not quoting them; in fact some physicians with strong credentials with evident objectivity get censored (when so much blatant, unsubstantiated reported remains available).  [Update on 5/22: 600 doctors have sent a letter to Pres. Trump to report the lockdown is causing a more severe health crisis than the virus itself.]  Still, part of the cocoon’s purpose is to give us a koan to shake us up, to think fresh and outside the box, and prepare us for metamorphosis.  Therefore, a few oddities to the official story are necessary, including – how dare I?! – an analysis of Fauci.  Friends, Fauci is just a koan within a koan within a koan.  That’s all.  And if we’re going to emerge as butterflies, we need to contemplate some koans.

            Now let’s say we collectively do this and enter into Aquarius about a century early.  How might we, in our new consciousness, respond to our next pandemic?  Good news, friends: in Aquarius, we will not be freaking out. 

Let’s now examine the symbol for Aquarius.

            Aquarius is the “Water-bearer” and it is an Age of Air.  In light of Pisces, two fish swimming in the turbulence of water against each other, consider the power of the Water-bearer Air sign.  The Water-bearer is not driven by fear within the turbulence of water.  Instead, he wields power over water.  The story of Jesus walking on water is a perfect image of Aquarius.  He represents Christ consciousness of Aquarius serving Pisces at the start of the Age of Pisces – and, therefore, amusingly, he often asks aloud, “How long must I put up with this generation?"

            For the past year, I’ve been mulling over a great many distinctions between the current consciousness and the coming one, and everything is implicated.  Once we shift, so our will our educational systems, our political systems, our religious systems, our families and relationships, and, most certainly, our sciences.  For the health sciences, consider this distinction:

            Pisces: Everything is matter.  Matter is fixed.  Our health is determined by our genes, and these are fixed.  Sickness is determined by bacteria and viruses, and these are also fixed.  Therefore, even the well-established science of our immune system is left unspoken during a health crisis in a Piscean paradigm.

            Aquarius: Everything is energy.  Energy moves, evolves, and transforms.  Our health is determined by a combination of energetic forces in and around our bodies. Everything that enters into or touches our body, and even our very genes themselves, are malleable. Therefore, the already well-established science of our immune system is embraced and, during a health crisis, at the forefront of every dialogue.  (Of course, discussion of what to do on behalf of those without strong immune systems will also be discussed, but, importantly, methods to boost our immune systems will be key in a more holistic, complete set of discussions and decision-making policies.)

            This “Aquarian” way of scientific thinking is led by the twin yet competing disciplines of Quantum Physics and Quantum Mechanics, sciences a century old, but too weird, too un-Piscean, for our textbooks.  However, some sciences are building upon these, such as the newest science of health, Epigenetics. (If you’re ambitious and would like to better understand it, review the explanation by the British Society for Cell Biology).

            So what might a more Aquarian doctor say about this virus and pandemic?  My own go-to is one of the leading forerunners of Epigentics, Dr. Bruce Lipton (CurriculumVitae).  While at Stanford University in the 1980s and ‘90s, Dr. Lipton fell upon an astounding discovery: our genes can be flipped on or off by our cell membrane.  For a brief explanation, review paragraphs 9-12 of this Independent article.  Or, in a video from years ago, watch Dr. Lipton explain how viruses work and how to keep yourself healthy.

            Just like the quantum sciences that led to its development, Epigenetics will likely will not take off until Aquarius, since it challenges the material paradigm of Pisces.  However, in the emerging consciousness, any science that acknowledges that everything is energy will be embraced. 

As we close, we’ll reaffirm that we are in the crucible of the cocoon right now, and for many, a hurricane rages all around with no clear path for how to make it out safely.  Once emergence does happen, much time will be necessary for many to discover a new life.  May we each persevere through our individual cocoons in strength, health, and hope. May our time at home, away from the World’s Materialism, be like the cocoon we need to give us the chance to reflect, learn, self-empower, contemplate some koans, think for ourselves, and emerge out of our cocoons into flight as butterflies.

Other pandemic posts:

Whispers of Mystery through the Pandmic
The Way of Zen through the Pandemic

© 2020 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.

The Way of Zen through the Pandemic

A week ago, I shared with my social media friends my choice to couple "stay at home" with a social media fast.  Of course, I am still here blogging, and I'll keep doing so through this pandemic.  My own perspectives on the pandemic differ from just about everyone I know.  Most are in fear over the health crisis; I am not.  Some are cynically critical of the media's narrative; I agree, but see a higher purpose. Some are afraid of its apocalyptic overtones; I am not. Some are scorning the president; some are praising him.  I am doing neither at this time; he's trying to look at the bigger picture, but, as always, he remains entirely incompetent for his position.  Some are hanging on the words of a traditional health expert who happens to be in an important position right now, Dr. Fauci; I do not; I listen to Dr. Bruce Lipton and others with a newer, more holistic approach to health.  (These two medical researchers will be discussed in my next post.)  Finally, most are distressed for what the future holds after this pandemic has passed; for those of us willing to learn from it, I am hopeful.

For now, enjoy the tidbit I shared with my social media friends and the Way of Zen poem to complement it:

"A post is circulating that Christianity isn't able right now to speak to the pandemic; I disagree. However, eastern spiritual wisdom really does. I was led to Lao Tsu and others in the second half of 2019, possibly in preparation for this moment. After the work the Spirit led me into last week, I am really ready now to soak in "stay at home" with inspiring texts, my own writing, and bonding with my family. So I will complement that with a social media break for a while. . . .  Something beautiful will come out of our current hardship, my friends, as we enter our hiding places, reflect on what really matters, discover how important our relationships are, and learn to build a better planet. Meanwhile, to all and to your health, strength, and peace."

Other Pandemic Posts:
Whispers of Mystery through the Pandemic

Cocoons and Koans