environmental wake-up - silver lining #2

As a result of the world’s cessation of polluting activities in reaction to the Coronavirus pandemic, Beijing’s pollution levels have drastically dropped and the waters in Venice’s canals are markedly cleaner.  

Along those lines is a post from climate activist Greta Thunberg’s Facebook page about the unintended proof to ourselves that we, as inhabitants of one planet, are capable of coming together in a massive effort  when the motivation and will are there.  

from Greta Thunberg’s Facebook page

Could a shake-up out of our inertia towards climate change and all the other related environmental quagmires become an unintended but much needed side effect of the worldwide virus pandemic?   

moving mountains - silver lining #1

This is the first of several posts examining the silver lining underneath the worldwide Corona virus crisis, and there are many as you will see over the next posts.  

This virus, came out of nowhere - they call it a black swan event. in December it appeared in China and barely three months later it has engulfed the entire world. The public’s reaction, and the many governments’ actions, demonstrate what an enormous motivator fear is.  But the effects and repercussions demonstrate the enormity of what we can achieve when we all come together as a human species with one common goal.   

We have been paralyzed by the sheer size of the many problems our planet and species is currently experiencing. The specter of climate change with its innumerable subproblems has been around for how long??????????????   Somehow we have to be hit over the head by nature in order to spring into action.  Well, this virus clearly did that, and this crisis is showing us all how fast we can act when we come together as inhabitants of one planet with one common goal.  No mountain is too high, no crisis too complex.  

Let’s tackle climate change next.  

resilience is key

In the past week or two my thoughts on the New Normal have evolved quite a bit.  Some of my earlier, a bit flippant, assessments on this new virus have been superseded.  But I am also less panicked, accepting that we need to move through this graciously since it’s unavoidable that the virus is spreading across the globe.

So, thoughts on resilience are helpful since you all have access to enough press coverage to stay in a state of suspended and chronic anxiety and that’s not useful.  Instead, let’s talk about cultivating resilience by boosting your own inner defenses, such as courage and strengthening your immune system.  

The toilet paper shortage is a silly symptom of people’s short-term panic reaction.  Since this virus will probably take about 6 months (if not longer) to wash over this country you will need to exist and survive in this new cultural construct for a while. You’ll learn to trust that the shelves in your local supermarket will again be filled with toilet paper and pasta two weeks from now. Exhale……………

Strengthening the host (you, your body and mind), as Liise-ann Pirofski, about whose work as an infectious disease specialist I wrote in an earlier post, puts it,  gives you a sense of empowerment.

Here goes.  Strengthen the host, you, by getting plenty of sleep (easy if you will be working from home), eating plenty of greens (lots of antioxidants) and fresh foods (now is a good time to sign up for a local CSA and support the farmers and your local economy, and do more home cooking),  supplementing (especially lots of vitamin C and D3, perhaps chlorella or other microgreens), getting plenty of fresh air and sunshine, shutting off the news from time to time, and being mindful of your thoughts (fearful thoughts self-prophesize).  None of these constitute new news, really.  But in times like these we may be more motivated to listen to such messages then when we’re endlessly rushing around.  Stop watching doomsday movies and have a glass of wine with a friend instead.  It’s better for your disposition and your immune system.

The other way to develop resilience is by volunteering in your community or helping your elderly neighbors with shopping because you’ll feel useful, you are contributing, and that in turn boosts your immune system as well.  

The effects of this virus on our economy and culture also serve as a mirror.  Some realizations that are turning up are a false fears of scarcity (run on toilet paper), confusion over the truthfulness of the news (learning to distinguish fake from real news), the busyness we have all accepted as a way of life in this country (we are forced to slow down, suspend commuting for a while, and spend more quality time in our nuclear families), and the lack of a social safety net in this country (those without health insurance or sick leave will go to work sick and infect others - potentially you and me).  What do you make of this information?

Be well and stay healthy!

viral thoughts

·      Beijing’s pollution levels are way down.

·      The administration, and the public, will need to acknowledge the validity of science.

·      People are pulling together during difficult times.

·      Be proactive instead of reactive – boost immune system, don’t panic, eat better, get enough sleep, gain perspective (you won’t die, but the world economy will suffer).

·      Consider alternative treatment methods such as antiviral essential oils, we currently have no foolproof treatment method for this virus.

·      We learn how globally connected we are. Physical walls don’t protect us, the virus is coming in via boat and plane.

·      Our immune systems get to practice on new challenges.

·      China bans trade and consumption of wild animals (although not sure how much this will really do, but the awareness of the damage and cruelty of the pangolin and other wild animal trade is rising).

·      Age of transparency – China, Japan, and US leaders are being rebuked for sweeping the importance of this outbreak under the rug, and it’s blowing up in their faces.

·      Virus takes hold in acidic body chemistry environment.  Mmmmhhhh, that means cutting out sugar, starch (potatoes, rice), white flour (pasta, baked goods, pizza, waffles), and eat way less meat.. This is not a new message, these food items, eaten in excess as in the SAD Diet, also cause diabetes, heart disease, inflammation, and possibly promote cancer.  Eat your veggies!

the biggest movement you never heard of

Renewable energies have become very common, everyone talks about organics and goes shopping at farmers markets, and Andrew Yang’s thing was a universal basic income.  If you’re no vegan yourself you surely have several friends who are, and the MeToo Movement and the Weinberg trial are bringing about  a truer conversation about what women’s equality actually means.  But did you know that they all belong to the same bigger conversation, an actual cultural and consciousness shift that bakes them all together under a huge umbrella?

It may be the biggest movement you never heard of.  Ray and Anderson, authors of the 2000 book The Cultural Creatives, called it the “emergence of an entire subculture of Americans (and Europeans, and Japanese, as they point out).  “Because Cultural Creatives are not yet aware of themselves as a collective body, they do not recognize how powerful their voices could be.”  That was 20 years ago, and it seems that they/we are still not aware of how big of a body of change agents they/we collectively are.

Where do you think the sudden rise of a social-democratic movement in this country came from, and Bernie Sanders’ appeal in 2016 and now again?  The self-awareness and passion of this younger generation, other than the young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg who already has plenty,  still needs to mature into true activism for change out of self-awareness.  But it’s bubbling up everywhere. It’s encouraging,  but it also rattles an older, more conservative generation that’s apprehensive about change.  

See more posts on this cultural shift – on the incoming Aquarian energy, on Modern Monetary Theory, on new right brain culture, and on the crack in the story, among many more you’ll find in my blog archive.

May you see this new story emerging with excitement, and may you be as inspired as I am.

papaya thoughts

When I trained in Taekwondo, I learned how to deflect an attacker’s punch by simply being elsewhere when the strike hits.  Deflection at its best.  

Nonviolent communication is similar.  When we feel verbally attacked we are so conditioned to “punch” back, instead of deflecting or trying to understand what concern the attacker came from and turning the exchange around.  

Recently I posted a picture of papaya on Instagram.  A friend responded that she liked all fruit except papaya.  At first, I took the comment personally, silly me. Obviously, her dislike of papaya had nothing to do with me and everything with her.  So, then I turned the exchange around, away from me and responding to her observation, the nonviolent communication way.   Instead of reacting to her dislike of papaya, I asked about her favorite fruit, and we had a lovely exchange about favorite fruits, hers and mine.  

Turn it around.  Poof! Gone.  

we are soooo connected

The interesting thing about nationalism, borders, walls and NIMBY thinking (not in my backyard) is that their resurgence is happening at the same time as worldwide events shake us up to the realization that in the end we’re all connected across national borders as inhabitants of one shared planet.

Heavy petroleum use for energy production, transportation and industrial agricultural practices, ongoing deforestation, industrialized meat production, and single-use plastic consumption all contribute to pollution and climate change in a major way, not just where they originate, but worldwide.  

While the coronavirus is for the time being mainly a health concern in its country of origin, Chinese manufacturing is slowing down because Chinese workers are staying home under quarantine, and that affects economies worldwide.  

The Ethiopian Nile Dam that is supposed to bring one of the poorest countries in the world some much needed economic relief, is at the same time threatening water supply, farming viability and livelihood for the one hundred million Egyptians living downstream.

Borders and walls are physical representations of a limiting belief system.   Until we expand our consciousness, we will build walls, transport our garbage and recyclables to other countries, exit climate agreements, and send refugees back.  Change begins with you and me.

untethered

Without interrupting her tasks, my mother-in-law used to walk around her kitchen while calling people, tethered to the wall phone by a very very long cord.  As a teenager I used to sit on a stool in our hallway, trying to have a private conversation with my friends from the one central house phone that was plugged in around the corner in the living room.

Wireless and Bluetooth technology free us of those kinds of physical hardwired constraints, free us to take our cellphone and private (or public) conversation anywhere – in the closet, the garden, the street, the car, the subway.  The connecting is invisible.

Are we perhaps evolving away from such physical connections because our in-the-past-so-physical interpretation of the world is beginning to shift?  That thought intrigues me.    Telepathy and distant healing, reiki and other energy modalities, intent and the powers of creative visualization, all happen in the non-physical realm.  Are they any less real than our wireless cellphone connections or Bluetooth speaker transmissions? Does wireless technology perhaps signal the acceptance that the invisible is as real as the visible?

leave nature whole

Egg white omelets used to be quite the thing, and it was a blast from our cholesterol fearing past when a friend recently mentioned making one – here a link to an article that debunks some of the cholesterol misinformation and fears out there.  

In our scientific zeal we have been dissecting nature into its individual components, believing that we can isolate the “beneficial” or “good” parts and eliminate or diminish the “detrimental” or “bad” parts, with the intent to eat more “good” than “bad.”  That thinking has brought us man made fats (we can make your fat free of bad cholesterol), supplements (taking vitamin D pills instead of soaking up some sunshine, or resveratrol instead of drinking red wine), nutrient labels (“hopefully there are more ‘good’ than ‘bad’ nutrients in this food product”), and sugar-free drinks (beware of aspartame!).  It’s also brought us low fat and fat free products, with an emphasis on product. 

I’m not saying that all natural foods are equally good for all people.  After all, our digestive systems are individual and unique, and what’s beneficial for one may not be beneficial for somebody else.  Breeding and hybridization have of course always been ways to improve on nature too. But when we take that too far, such as with the modern wheat strains, our bodies rebel also.  

Products are seldomly better than nature, and there is nothing bad about eating the entire egg.   

a new normal

Life is rarely a straight line, sometimes in a “good” way, sometimes in, what at least at first blush, may be perceived as “bad.”  It twists and turns, has its ups and downs, and sometimes shifts dramatically and often in surprising ways. 

Recently I talked to someone about his trajectory from being a chemistry college major to working in technology sales.  Asked how it happened, he laughed and said, ”Not sure, but I love what I do now. ” Health issues can also bring about such shifts, as Jane Brody writes in a recent NYT article, “When Life Changes, Embrace the New Normal.“   You have to shift and adapt lest you hang on to the past and your old self.  

My daughter loves animals and loves to write.  She wanted to study zoology and creative writing.  But a diagnosis a few years ago got her heavily, and with growing interest, involved in medical and dietary  research, interested in the body’s recovery process, and especially in a holistic approach to the healing arts.  Only through this unfortunate diagnosis did she discover her deep interest in, and ability to easily comprehend, the body’s biochemical processes, and the relationship between inner psychological life and outer expression in the form of symptoms. She now wants to go to medical school to help others in their healing journey. 

“You never know when a silver lining may appear,” Wendy Harpham observes in that article. The new normal can be better than the old normal. Please regard a previous post on how healing is shifting.