We are another month closer to the new year which may have a sliver more positive anticipation after the recent elections. “Count your blessings,” is surely an overused and saccharine phrase these days. But if you are reading these words, it is likely that you are fed, warm and dry, and are using your computer in relative comfort. I daily do give thanks for these things that I do not take for granted.
Sure, living in a retirement home that has been undergoing major kitchen renovations of our former 30-year-old equipment and poor set up, now gives rise to food complaints as we endure months of food prepared in 5 huge FEMA style trailers that we have rented for the duration. Lack of dishwashers has meant eating from paper plates, buffet style serving, and endless repetitive menus due to the poor storage and freezer space available.
The entire restoration project is supposed to culminate in a grand Thanksgiving Day opening meal- but we shall see. We are still so fortunate. Most of us buffer our complaints with that understanding and we are very involved in supporting local food banks and services to support those in our area that continue to struggle as our national/state support systems continue to decline. It is horrifying that this occurs in America even as millions all over the world are starving who are also affected by the brutal decisions of our supposedly wealthy country.
Tragedies strike close to home with friends whose daughters and sons have lost their government jobs, their grants, their SNAP benefits, and their livelihoods. We are all affected by their lives as fellow human beings. Counting your blessings is one way to focus on the good and the hopeful during the avalanche of desperate news. It is only a moment of your time and has repeatedly been said by wiser and heartful beings, moments are all we really have. Make each one count as best you can on the positive side of the equation. As I titled this blog long ago, we are: shining light into dark places.
Yesterday was my 55th wedding anniversary, the eighth one without Richard. I no longer anticipate sorrow or nostalgia on this day but remain open to whatever arises. Last week this poem came to me in remembrance of my newly widowed days.
Holding Hands- a True Story
I moved here as a widow where nobody knew who you were, who we were, or who we had been during even one of our almost fifty years together.
I began life all over as just me, by myself.
A year or so after you died, I lay in bed one night crying softly in a sudden lament,
“But I’ll never… get to hold your hand… again!”
The next day I sat on an observation deck overlooking a swampy pond. A sparkling blue dragonfly alighted on my hand. His multifaceted eyes took me in. His translucent wings rested quietly on his back.
We sat there, he and I, holding hands for a long time.
I have returned to that pond, Button Bush Pond, many times and never again has a swooping hungry dragonfly come near me. It was a lovely recollection, a healing gift from Nature’s bounty. We are all held every day by Gaia.
On the days predicted to be hot, I get outside as early as I can on my mobility scooter. Just before dawn, it is so quiet on this campus with hundreds of residents and staff. Even the noisy geese are inhabiting other ponds in the area. Only the croak of one resident duck couple and a few bullfrogs sounds me out as I roll by five of our other ponds. It has felt like the end of August already, with chilly dew-drenched mornings and hot swimming temperatures by afternoon. In the middle of last month, I saw my first monarch butterfly and heard the first evening cricket and buzzing night insects in the trees. The weather patterns have changed course as any times as our President’s erratic pronouncements.
As I keep reiterating here, I work to keep my heart open as a grounded witness to this rapidly evolving transformation of my country and the world.
Flowers for beauty amidst the filthy pollution of violent words and deeds.
May they bring soft power to blunt the edges of our collective fears and rage.
Their blossoms need careful attention to avoid being overwhelmed by unlimited chaos.
Care-full balancing the elements of sun, rain, fertile earth, and clean air yields flower-full results over time we have been sadly wasting.
Rigid arsenals against their enemies never work. A good flower garden must adapt to changing circumstances, alert to all internal and external forces that thwart healthy growth.
The interconnectedness of any garden community cannot thrive if it is restricted to insistent monocultures that disregard the reality of seasons. It must celebrate the innate cycles of expansion and contraction for all beings in all circumstances that surround it.
No matter who our new head gardener will be, there is much work to be done in salvaging this garden flag gone wild.
I include yellow stars for every state of being, of living, of healing and the pursuit of happiness.
It is hard to believe that I arrived here the day after the fourth of July weekend six years ago. I remember being driven by my daughter and son-in-law through mountainous upstate New York, briefly through Pennsylvania and on into open flatlands of Ohio. My first glimpse of Lake Erie was through the haze of barbeque grilling smoke as we passed the park on its shore. I spent the night with my daughter at the Oberlin Hotel and the next day I walked onto Kendal’s campus for the first time.
Now Kendal is my home. I often use the term ‘widow shock’ to describe my own haze when I first arrived. Richard’s memorial was in March, and here I was in July, moving into a small but lovely ‘hospital room’ with my own bath. The Care Center rooms were indeed designed to be for residents during recovery post-surgery or from an illness before they returned to their own cottage or apartment on campus. To my surprise, by January 1st, I was chosen to live in an Assisted Living room down the hall. It is more like a studio apartment and larger and more spacious than the nun-like room I first thought of as mine.
My daughter and son-in-law (and now my young grandsons) have helped me over the years to make it my own bright yellow space. I am happy here. I grow geraniums that flower in the northwest light.
I am coining a new phrase- SDD or Seasonal Disorientation Disorder. Since February 1st it has felt like spring here in Northeast Ohio. If it had been March or April, you would expect the yo-yo extremes of warm sunny days coaxing out the early flowers and returning songbirds followed by freezing nights and a few inches of snow. But it seems we have added another whole month to springtime. Now that it is March, there are already robins, nest builders, returning geese couples, early booming plants and benches that beckon you to sit a while in the warm sun. It seems wrong to cut winter short (unlike in Alaska where they had record snowfalls) and yet delight in wearing only a light sweater or jacket to walk and jog along clear paths.
We are fortunate that lovely weather is the result of climatic disruptions. Others around the country and the world watch droughts and floods and violent storms destroy their way of life, with the looming certainty that the usual order has forever been changed. I know I do my best to limit my climate unsustainable consumerism as an individual living in my community in America. But as an individual I don’t have much of an impact on the sweeping reforms necessary to ensure that my grandsons will have a safe planet to live on. But I can vote!
My spiritual practice stabilizes me in a big picture of humanity’s sojourn on Earth. There is nothing in the universe that does not expand and contract, passing through stasis points on either end. What remains constant is the source of creation itself, called by many names, accessed, and sought after by science and diverse paths, all leading to acknowledge our impermanence. I can live with that. I do live with that intimately as my body ages and declines in its own unique way.
Today I am grateful for mobility scooters and sunshine, friends and neighbors, nurses and physical therapists, and the joy of being alive to witness being one of eight billion people on earth. Consider that we are a very small percentage of the billions of beings that we share the planet with. Even the few tiny ants that have begun to traverse the desert of my bathroom floor are part of my world each spring. Taking every moment that I have, just to be alive, is the joyful thing that I, as an individual, can do my best to inhabit every day.
The first week of October here in northeast Ohio was in the 80’s. Summer weather! Though we had had a number of chilly September nights that rendered nighttime insects silent, the creatures surged back with enthusiastic trilling. Since yesterday, the thermometer and insect sounds slid back down again. There is a stiff breeze accompanying the cold front. Sweaters, corduroys, and snuggly jackets sprouted like mushrooms overnight. I had help to accomplish the annual Changing of the Clothes and my bureau is full because of bulkier materials. My closet is half empty with the hung blouses, skirts, and dresses tucked away in a storge bin under my plant shelf. Who knows what this year’s transition to winter will be like? Warmer than usual? Colder? More or less snow? What exactly is usual anyway? Not like what I remember when I was a child? Answer: wait and see.
The world goes on as it does. Horrible events explode, others weary in duration, unexpected discoveries and under-reported miracles of beauty, love and survival shine through the cracks of our human endeavors. I never could have imagined these ongoing challenges presented to me every day- the ones where I am asked to keep my heart open to witness constant violence and the unraveling of democracies all over the planet.
I thought only to hold my beloveds as they go through the trials of their ordinary lives. To be a planetary citizen who cultivates compassion and peace is to have long ago signed a contract to live in this age at this exact juncture of history. Not the one our parents lived in. Not as we remember how life used to be when we were children. Weather, politics, education, technology, science, or history are not the same for our grandchildren as it was for us. The challenges of my generation continue to expand even as our hearts want to contract in the darker face of it all.
Focusing close to home is where we can have an immediate impact and where we can see how to heal and be healed. Here in the northern hemisphere, the old tapestry colors of fall illuminate the beautiful necessity of letting go. Chlorophyl factories are not on strike but naturally shutting down their former production. Leaves detach without any makeup or clinging and fall to the ground in an ever faster choreographed ballet. Animals fatten up and prepare for slower metabolisms, dormancy, or migration without wondering for how long or how cold it will be. They trust they will adapt. As will we. As we must and as fast or slowly as we do.
I am adapting to my new power wheelchair. Her name is Reina the Beast (a queen because she has a bit of purple metal on her fenders. She rises up so that seated, I can look a tall person in the eye. She reclines and unfolds like a hospital bed, and is designed for indoor or outdoor navigation with large middle wheels sporting thick cleats. (I haven’t yet found the control for her to pay my taxes, but I’ll keep looking.) I only use her inside for now as I do not wish to deal with the dirt her clever wheels would track into my one room home. As long as I can still transfer into my scooter which lives in the hall by my door, I will ride that into dawn and sunsets wearing my hat and fall jacket. I am losing mobility and strength, and Reina will help me maintain my independence for that much longer. Not with a “little bit of (but with a lot of) help from my friends.” Cue the Beatles…you do remember them?
Northeast Ohio where I live has been spared most of the high temperatures burning across America and the world. We are fortunate in that regard. We have Lake Erie not far away and the water table is very high locally. Our campus is carefully and sustainably built on former wetlands. As a result, we have seven different ponds which support various waterfowl and other critters of the water loving variety.
I saw my first Green Heron the other day. It was sitting on a downed grayish log lying across the far end of the pond. I only saw through its perfectly blended camouflage because the head moved to reveal the long dagger sharp beak in profile. I wondered why the frogs were silent and why two small birds kept fluttering wildly over that log- a feeble attempt to foil the still predator among them. It was too far away to get a closeup with my phone camera but when I looked green herons up online, it was obvious that is who I saw to add to the blue and white ones that I have seen as more frequent visitors here.
In the middle of July we did have a short hot spell. That sent some songbirds to begin their migrations and the insects to begin their romancing all ahead of schedule. It is hard to believe there are still avid climate change deniers around Ohio or anywhere in the States these days. Anybody who loves the outdoors for sport, large- and small-scale agriculture, or play, has to know that former patterns of weather systems have changed significantly. People are too frightened to admit the evidence before them and are not given the information or the structured guidance as to how we can all dig in to make necessary painful changes that must happen if we are to adapt to this new world we share. Hence, we are watching a presidential denier accumulate indictments as a means of funding his reelection campaign.
Burning the Cicada Calendar: July, 2023
From high in the trees
cicadas launch summer sonics,
wave after wave of trilling clatter
filling silent holes migrant
songbirds leave behind.
To the day, this used to denote
Listening to their fanfare every year
August had crawled up the branches in our woods.
we promptly flipped the calendar.
But today it’s only mid-July
annual male cicadas rattle their tymbals
the drowning whir for females
subsumes frog bellows and leaf chatter.
Hot soil summoned adults out of the earth
out of synch, out of time,
the cycle used to be
nature’s careful calendar.
End of Summer Insects
By day cicadas
By night crickets and katydids
Where did summer go?
I cannot sustain my life by living in despair for the future. I am not sticking my head in the sand to declare everything is “gonna be OK”. Rather I look for joy wherever I can find it and my friends and I do not leave our conversations in the downward spiral that starts innocently enough with: “Did you hear the news that.. read the article in.. see the documentary on..” and before long we are shaking our heads at all the awful things happening in the world. We always stop ourselves, breathe, and share a personal story of friends and family to end on a positive note. It helps us to keep things in perspective. Much is out of our control, but in small significant ways we can contribute to remain balanced and uplift one another as best we can.
I wrote this for my own self to hum when the world gets me down. It has a simple melody but here are just the lyrics:
JOY
Have you laughed out loud with a friend today?
Then joy, joy, let’s sing of joy
Have felt contented and peaceful today?
Then joy, joy, let’s sing of joy
How can you sing of joy when
The world is so full of sorrow?
How can you sing of joy
When the world is so full of fear?
How can you sing a song of joy
When we’re losing our hope in tomorrow?
How can you sing a song of joy
When the future is so unclear?
If joy dries the tears on just one face
Then joy, joy, let’s sing of joy
If joy makes the world a more loving place
Then joy, joy, let’s sing of joy
If joy holds up hope through one endless night
Then joy, joy let’s sing of joy
If joy brings the world a heart full of light
Then joy, joy, let’s sing of joy
Have you had a moment of joy today?
Then joy, joy, let’s sing of joy
Have you shared a moment of joy today?
Then joy, joy, let’s sing of joy
August unfolds before us and may the end of this summer season bring you joy to affirm and sustain you and yours for wherever your life leads you next.
The first Kendal resident (who is living in the Care Center) just tested positive for COVID. The community is shocked and saddened. Thankfully, this person is already recovering in a negative pressure room in a hallway specifically designed to prevent any possible spread of contagion.
We had been so careful and so lucky. We are sobered. We all slid back to stricter safety measures. We remember that vaccines are not 100% effective, that we produce fewer antibodies than the young, that the emerging variants are more contagious. I am restricted from accessing the rest of Kendal again for two weeks. But I am also well cared for, safe. I am trying to get my arms around the ongoing nature of our long journey. I am calling on the wisdom of love, the strength of compassion.
Books of Reckoning
The gray fog of isolation swallowed you whole
weighed down by loneliness, severed by separation
arms and hands too disabled to reach out
Restrictions imposed on you slammed shut door after door
complaints erupted in helpless defiance of safety vs. freedom
the need to know whose facts justified those rules
You struggled to comprehend the sweep of what we lost
inspiring reinvention, rewiring, redesigning
seeking reconnections new and healthy
on top of still sturdy foundations
Despite these individual reactions inside of our community bubble
so far, not even one of us or those we gratefully employ
died from this still evolving virus
The days of reckoning our books, our health
find us in good standing so far
though it is not over, and we were never suffering alone
The world beyond lost millions- Millions-
one million children orphaned
half a million without grandparents
we all are orphaned by the loss of ideals, by kindness submerged in fearful hate
Losses-Losses-Losses
the entire World Body ravaged by a pandemic
reckoning results of ignorance and greed
that are not over
all is coming due… and yet
Look to our young and old hearts, shaped by this same sere crisis
unfold into the future
nothing is foretold
all is in the telling
May we be held accountable
May we be sustained through clear vision and nurturing
an abundance of true stories reckoned worthy to be told
I wrote the lyrics to this potential rap song back in June. (the chorus has a melody that can be used to give the spoken word underlying rhythmic chords). I thought it might not be relevant for very long and left it alone. Today, I think it sad that it is all too relevant. The tragedy played out on the world stage, starring our own national drama, continues to capture our horrified attention. The anxiety rattles the air we breathe, and we are doing what we can to survive and keep hope alive. Survival takes full time attention. Those of us who are able to keep our homes, our jobs, and health, have the luxury of pondering what this cycle of deconstruction means. We find our hope in small flashes of worldwide courage and youthful leadership. We find joy in families, art, Nature, and a means of embracing the mundane and raising it into a refuge of hope.
Hope Arising
by Judi Bachrach
Gaia, She hangs in some cosmic infinity
Mother of us all She acquires some divinity
Her salt tears are rising, She storms and She burns
With immutable laws that Her children must learn
I’ve got to-
uplift, my heavy heart
Whenever I feel my world is falling apart
I’ve got to uplift my troubled mind
Give voice to all the love and all the light I can find
Many thousands are dying, many millions are crying
Others are lying, blaming and denying
Problems are revealed, fundamentally systemic
Everybody everywhere is hurt by this pandemic
And I’ve got to-
uplift, my heavy heart
Whenever I feel my world is falling apart
I’ve got to uplift my troubled mind
Give voice to all the love and all the light I can find
The whole world is in chaos it has happened before
Poverty, tyranny, deadly plagues, and war
Everything is shifting before our own eyes
We’ve got to keep uplifting so that Hope can arise
And I’ve got to-
uplift, my heavy heart
Whenever I feel my world is falling apart
I’ve got to uplift my troubled mind
Give voice to all the love and all the light I can find
Gaia, She hangs in some cosmic infinity
Mother of us all she acquires some divinity
Her salt tears are rising, She storms and She burns
With immutable laws that her children must learn
And I’ve got to-
uplift, my heavy heart
Whenever I feel my world is falling apart
I’ve got to uplift my troubled mind
Give voice to all the love and all the light I can find
The Beneficent Beaming Multi Stalk-Eyed Watcher’s latest Bulletin is here!
This Watcher is reviewing the new holograph released by Universal Homosapien Holos called, “Apocalypse: The Revelation”. This is a redundant title since my linguelator said that the word ‘apocalypse’ originally meant ‘revelation’ in early Earth/Englishe to begin with. Right away we realize the story is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, (a small planet in the Sol star system of the strangely named Milky Way galaxy). Some of the main human characters who live there always wear facemasks covering their one nose and one mouth. They keep well distanced from other humans because of a viral pandemic that has infected millions as the story opens. Others still will not wear face masks, even though it has already been an Earth Sol year of profound loss of life and lifestyles due to this contagion that spreads through their unique respiratory systems. The Us vs. Them mentality is played out in increasingly unbelievable (to this multi eye-stalk viewer) ways as the interpersonal stories unfold. This mentality is how most all humanoid endeavors seem destined to evolve.
The Maskers vs. Non-Maskers are further subjected to world chaos. The main characters dwell in a country, (a geographical demographic unit) called a Meriky, which was apparently was once regarded as a planetary leader through its abundant natural resources and the ingenuity of its beings. Now the entire planet they inhabit is in the throes of violent climatic disruptions. Human ingenuity turns to misusing native materials which leads to rampant greed, power domination, and weapons of mass destruction. This trend serves to destroy the very basis for their wealth. Besides suffering from plagues, colossal storms wreak havoc through floods, droughts, raging wildfires and drowning landmasses by rising oceans. The life sustaining systems of water and air quality are disrupted further affecting food and health services for all citizens. Given the embedded global hostilities of Us vs. Them, nothing is being done to curb the continuing damage.
The final intense plot twist involves the upcoming choice to challenge the current ruling leadership in this country a Meriky. The so-called “President” is a caricature of a maniacal dictator who employs fear-inducing propaganda to whip up his minority of frenzied followers. The Founding Fathers of this young nation wrote beautifully worded ideals into documents that were intended to form the basis of a just and noble working “democratic” form of governance. The current “President” has the backing of his political cronies to subvert these high-minded intentions into false stories reinterpreted to support their elite narrow power base. His opponents seem somehow largely well-meaning but ineffectual. Though extreme emotional distress was well portrayed by the human actors, there is nothing especially new presented here in the violent world of homo sapiens.
A sub theme involves both Maskers and Non-Maskers being caught in the ridiculous illusion that the skin color of human beings is some defining marker to designate inclusion or disenfranchisement in their world! All of the many cracks in the foundation of this one immature government of a Meriky are proving to be fatal and the holograph includes Earth history to show how this came to be. Historical references scattered throughout the dialogue mentioned the “fall of Rome” (apparently some earlier colonizing empire), and the “Third Reich” (another recently failed government of an Earth country) that copied hypocritical racially biased laws of a Meriky to justify the genocide they intended during their own attempt at world domination. The insertion of such obscure facts made it more difficult to wade through the usual romantic emotion-driven humanoid love stories that occur between characters on both sides of the hostilities. These romantic connections always seem to lead to confusingly fraught mating rituals.
That said, I honestly have not finished watching the display all the way to the end. The main theme depicting the repetitive hopelessness of the human condition was all too clear. Given what we know of the cyclical nature of the universe, this is neither a new theme nor a true revelation.
However, I am pleased to note that actual seeds of hope were planted inside the human heroes and heroines as we track their shining determination to find others with the integrity, compassion, and strength to take appropriate actions to bring positive change for themselves and their crumbling world. As admittedly alien as I am to processing the irrational emotions of this scenario, I still find myself cheering for fallible humanity just the same. How will it all end? Or how will it all begin again? Cycling universal patterns remains one more intriguing mystery for all sentient beings to contemplate. I will update this bulletin when I revisit the holograph’s conclusion and by then perhaps there will be a wonderful surprise sequel of true revelation.
For now, I began watching a new hit display called, The Potential Existence ofWormhole Fire Eruptions in Zxgyx*{Gx, another recent release by Universal Homosapien Holos. Interestingly, it stars a variety of famous intergalactic performers playing bi-pedal two-eyed human beings. I know that we all look forward to sharing that unique experience.
To conclude, I welcome your own reviews of Apocalypse: The Revelation, especially those from other star systems who have followed this particular sweep of Earth’s history to the end. I may not agree with your perspectives on this obscure planet, but I’d love to beneficently beam ideas with you.
My former home in the Catskill mountains was surrounded by woods. My husband and I stewarded 60 acres, but as we lived on a high shoulder of John’s Mountain, there were hundreds of forested acres above us and to either side of us. Below, leading down into the valley, were more and more homes carved into the hillsides. Scattered along the country highway, was a rural suburbia. In one direction the highway led to town and in the other, another half hour of travel by car took you to the next set of villages. Forty-five minutes away, in a small city that was our county seat, lived about 140,000 souls. It doesn’t take a huge amount of imagination to visualize it all bursting into flames once a major fire took hold under dry conditions. The corridor of devastation would be huge.
My heart, already heavy with sorrow for the plight of our nation, now is also aching for all of my friends on the west coast. Some live in the so far safe but toxic air of Portland, OR, and some in California have survived the destruction of miles and miles and miles of forests, homes, lifeworks, equity, and livelihoods. None of the people I know have lost their lives. For that I am grateful. Some scrambled for temporary dwellings other than FEMA tents set up on golf courses six feet away from one another during the pandemic. Others moved in with adult children or are finding the kindness of other organizations to provide a roof over their heads as the unprecedented high temperatures soared. Climate deniers have met their match beneath orange skies. Again.
We are asked to bear witness in this chaotic time. It is a daily challenge to keep my compassion flowing for so many facing so much loss while staying grounded in the knowledge that I cannot take personal responsibility for changing the outcome of such forces. I can respond to them with care and concern and the small local actions that are available to me. Every aspect of our society and country and world is being affected by global crisis arising from the pandemic, climate change, and subsequent economic deterioration. The individual political leadership varies, but the issues confronting us require strength and wisdom and need for unity that is sadly lacking.
The word witness is derived from Old English, relating to the Anglo Saxon word witan, meaning “a body of wise men” and the origins of the word wit likely come from the Latin verdere “to see, to know” and the ancient Sanskrit word veda meaning “knowledge”. To witness, to see and to know, the devolution of the world as I knew it up close and personal, is a task I am called upon to inhabit. I am graced that today I am not called upon to survive immediate danger but have the opportunity to reflect and witness. Millions are not so fortunate.
May our own capacity to simultaneously stay open and grounded help support the great need for healing and action, strength and surrender, wisdom and love, in ourselves and in our world.
Judi B's Blog 