A current crisis is surrounding the world and suffocating some. Schools are closed and the word “essential” has taken on new meaning. What once seemed important has faded into memory, and the things that make life worth living: love, family, friendship, loyalty, integrity, food, employment, health, and nature have emerged once again forcing us to take notice. I’m not saying these things were not important to people before this crisis. I am saying that we have all been forced to slow down, pause, even stop, and recognize that our material items, favorite, restaurants, movie theaters, iphone, and so on, now take a backseat to what we actually live for.
Will we forget after we all pay our debt? I am seeing and hearing about more and more people having home cooked meals, taking walks in the woods, talking about social emotional learning in schools, being grateful for the small things…
“Hello Darkness, My Old Friend” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Measuring Time By the Mug
I am measuring time by the mug.
At first light,
Covers thrown back with a smile,
A loaded pot of coffee waits.
Brewed, poured over a butter pat,
Brain cells brighten.
Morning pleasures unfold and
Green sun tea companions me to noon.
An octave of hours
Lays open like a trunk of treasures
To be explored.
Herbal notes sound at quarters:
Ginger and Lemongrass.
The Tulsi pouch of Holy Basil.
Plucked Peppermint leaves.
Valerian and Passionflower
Precede the pillow.
Eyes closed, I dream journey
To tearooms, temples, towers of rock.
Transcending time, to truth, by the mug.
— Deborah Chappa April 2020
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Deborah is a friend, fellow hiker, blogger, and Condolence Note Coach. Yesterday, Deborah sent me this poem with the line, “This segment of time holds such opportunity: going deeper with words and no words, nature and inner nature, from doing to being!” It is my honor to share Deborah’s poem with my followers. http://condolencecoach.blogspot.com/
MacDougal Nipple Cactus (Mammillaria heyderi var. macdougalii) is a large, flattened cactus that grows on hillsides in the desert grassland above 4000 ft elevation. The large yellow flowers usually open in a full ring.
Time to listen to the doctors my friend. Stay home if you can. Keep the six feet distance and don’t take your children to the store with you, keep your children away from the sick. Wash your hands often, if you went to a store, wash your hands after and ensure we are washing our hands as often as possible. Drink warm drinks and if you must work. Drink warm beverage hourly. Don’t take ibuprofen if sick. Use the acetaminophen only. If sick, get treatment and stay home. Please keep the older people in the house and shop for them. The Spanish Flu started very slowly and became stronger. Please be kind to people near and help who you can. Stay safe, use the computers, cell phones and tablets to communicate. We must understand the coronavirus, all of us. Please listen to the doctors and the scientist my friend..
Country Club Vista Circle In Tanuri Ridge — Image by kenne
Most of the residence of Tanuri Ridge are empty-nesters or retirees, However, there’s a couple in our neighborhood with two preschoolers. We are all part of our “stay-at-home” world, and the children have no idea as to what is going on. Yes, they know there’s no going daycare, no going to the park, no swimming at our community pool (their parents are former U of A swimmers, now working in the Athletic Department), and that mom and dad are at home all the time. They will grow up in a world utterly different from that that we have known. They will only know the 21st century, hopefully learning from the 20th.
Each day we see the two children, once on our walk, the other when their parents bring them to play on the grass on Country Club Vista Circle. For a lot of us, our real education was from the street. Well, these kids are literally learning from the street. They live at the end of Tanuri Drive, so there’s no traffic in front of their home, making the pavement a perfect place to have a classroom.
With area parks closed, once or twice a day, the family has play-time on the grassy circle, often arriving pulling the kids in a wagon. (The live about 3/4 of a mile from the circle.) This family is fortunate. It has resources making adjustments easy.
The children Joy teaches reading (Literacy Connects) are not so lucky. They are probably in the streets because their home, maybe that of a diabetic grandmother, is no place to stay for long periods. The children and adults that Literacy Connects serve will suffer the most and may never completely recover from the effects of this pandemic, even if they stay healthy.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
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“Hello Darkness, My Old Friend” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
MacDougal Nipple Cactus — Image by kenne
Calicle Globemallow Wildflower — Image by kenne
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Country Club Vista Circle In Tanuri Ridge — Image by kenne
