A Viral Sa Bat

deeply embedded

     Some things we cannot escape. Deep brain stuff.

Pacific coast bluff, north of Cambria 

 nature's memes

     Ancient cultures made their own accords with nature. Before maps, native people made the outcropping above a special place. They worked mortar holes into the rock on this bluff vista. They ground food and gathered here and returned seasonally, year after year.

Iconic rock and sanctuary for sea birds

Cambria, Ca

       Nature has its go to places. It provides rhythm, reason and living things then respond. From the beginning, humans have observed, remembered, and acted. We seek places for retreat and sanctuary.

as though we always knew

     Against what passes for our modern "will," and not by our design, humankind has found itself observing ancient advice, maybe code, running in the DNA or neural chemistry. 

      Fight or flight is said to be instinct. Instinctively we took to shelter, to avoid the invisible terrorist. It is the same dance  animals have taken to avoid a predator, since life dawned.

      Instinct, code, neural learning, survival, evolution. 

spring bloom, California central coast 

cease and stop

     Work through this with me, please. In the last two months, as the world gave up commerce and the frenetic pace of modern life, wonderful things have occurred on the planet. Scientists say Earth is healing, at least getting a break. Air is cleaner. We've stopped pumping as much poison and plastic into nature. 

      As people we have struggled. The economy plummets, financial futures seem in ruin, children at home, conscripted family and domestic arrangements, and we are forced into new ways of doing almost everything. 

      Life as we knew it stopped!

     

an enforced Shabbat

     Biblical Hebrew Shabbat means to stop, to cease. But it goes deeper and more broadly.

     Sumerian language gives us Sa bat, meaning "mid rest." It is the language of one of the oldest civilizations in this epoch of human history, the language of Sumer, from the early Bronze age. Old. Very old. Deep, deep history. 

     Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was used in Mesopotamia from 3 Millenia BCE. Their word was "um nuh libi," meaning "day of mid repose."
     Scholarship suggests the concept was also part of the Ugarit language around 6000 BCE. Ugarit is related to Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician, a bridge between cultures.
     Hit fast forward to about 800 BC and we begin to see how this concept of rest and stop gathers cultural power. We find "Shmita," part of 7 year cycle in Hebrew culture, where land is to be left fallow for a year and all debts are to be forgiven. Every 7 years.
      Since 500 BCE Buddhists seek an inner calm and peace by observing "Uposatha day," a time for cleansing the mind.
      The height of Muslim practice is Jumu'ah, the Friday afternoon prayer when one is to remember Allah and leave business and the affairs of life.
      Seminary Professor Randy Woodley, a Keetoowah Cherokee descendent says American indigenous people did not live by seven day calendars. Their life was organized to provide what they needed, "There was no drive toward over production, no fostering of greed for more than was needed." 
      The wealthiest helped others. Generosity was a core value as was respect for nature. 
     "Even today, a Cherokee teaching instructs when gathering herbs and medicines, one should pick only every fourth plant, leaving the rest for the earth and other people."
      Indigenous people observed festivals and ceremonies that provided a sense of nature, balance and connection.

a concept missing in action

     Perhaps you remember when Sunday/Sabbath was not only a matter of faith practice, but a cultural artifact. Stores were not open, liquor could not be purchased, youth sports never occurred on Sunday morning, people rested, or went to church or temple, took Sunday drives to visit relatives, had picnics and a host of activity that was, if not a stopping, at least a slowing down.

      The 20th Century took us far from that life. And now in the 21st we find ourselves forced into a virus mandated Sa Bat.

how are we doing?

      What have we learned, of ourselves, of how we live, work, and spend our days?

       We're at an historic pass. We don't know what is ahead as we begin to "reopen for business" and try to find our way to "normal." Will there be a new outbreak, new spikes, new emergencies? Will our government find a way to extend financial lifelines to millions upon millions of working people?  

       How will business, travel, and hospitality find footing?

       We are at a base line and zero moment in medical and scientific research. There is much to learn and we are pushing boundaries of knowledge. It is a cutting edge.

        The same is so for how we live. What do we take from this Sa bat? Did this junction of disease and life and the mandated repose tell us something about how to deal with another looming crisis, climate change?

       Did we learn what we have become as people, who eschew ideas of rest, ceasing, or stopping?

       Did we learn something of 21Century humanity as a  materialistic, consuming and technology driven animal that chooses not to contemplate matters of soul, spirit, or the principles and morality that arise from times of ritual rest,  observance, celebration or prayer?

       Is the desire for such rest hard wired in our brain? Is it a tool of our well being?

       Did the ancient practice ground us to something vital to our survival? 

 in praise of gardening

    And praise for the gardener, Lana, who has painted this hill with color and devotion.

you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours

     Take care of each other. Stay well.

     See you down the trail.