Dreaming the World

Well, it’s been a while since I last posted, mainly because I was dealing with Lyme fatigue and foggy brain. Now I know what friends have been going through. Fortunately it was diagnosed and treated quickly. As per the norm, I never saw the offending tick.

We awoke to a lovely early summer morning, following a weekend of much needed rain. Today the sun is bright and warm, throwing those long, dark, sensuous mid-summer shadows across the landscape. Our birdfeeder is uber active and we enjoyed our morning tea and breakfast on the sunporch, a few feet from the feeder. Tomorrow marks the solstice.

As we approach the turning of the year, I’ve been thinking about how surreal the world is at the moment. Here we are in a Covid lull and it seems the entire country has decided the pandemic is behind us. There is almost no discussion of the tens of millions in our country who have long term health problems and/or disabilities as a result of having had the virus. Nor is there much concern about the new variant now sweeping through China.

I am reminded of the Fifties, post the polio vaccine. Seemingly overnight the country “returned to normal”, quickly forgetting about the millions of us who were dealing with the long term aftermath of the virus. Within about a year most of the funding for polios dried up, and even the March of Dimes abandoned its promise to support us for as long as we needed and went in search of another disease to conquer. There was no longer money to be made from polio.

Making things worse was the demand that we polios “get over and on with it.” Suddenly we were expected to lead normal, non-disabled, lives in ravaged bodies. The desire to be done with polio was so intense that medical schools stopped teaching about polio, making it very very difficult for polios to find specialist care, a condition that has only worsened over time. I feel extremely fortunate to have a team of polio savvy healthcare providers, although I wonder what polios will do for care as the few remaining physicians who are polio educated retire.

This brings us back to the issue of Covid and its aftermath. The pandemic is far from over, although the vaccines give most of us a modicum of protection; hundreds of people die from the virus each week, and many more experience debilitating post-Covid sequala.

As we collective face the long term impacts of the virus, and an exhaustive list of existential threats, the country at large appears to be suffering a terrible case of denial. The political media show, which focuses on truly important concerns, largely ignores the real world of threat and suffering. The situation is indeed surreal.

Tomorrow, as the sun appears to stand still, then pivots on his axis, heading again towards a too warm winter, it is good to stop, breath, soak in the grandeur of our living world, and give thanks to the sun and earth for or lives. As we do so, let’s remember that any threat we perceive as coming from them is actually self induced. We are the ones who are out of balance, out of true relationship, with All That Is.