Cover Up---Open Up---What's Up---Rise Up

warp speed

the mascot of the US testing program

   And now we are to understand we've become further divided. Wearing masks, or not. Opening up, even beyond recommendations or not. 

    I've drawn my line in the sand. This virus will not end, we must learn to live with it, wisely. 

    Until and if there is a vaccine or treatment we must pursue testing and contact tracing to give us the tools to keep people healthy and alive while also bringing a global economy back to life. They go hand in hand. To act otherwise is foolish, and dangerous. 

    There is no solution without a cost. Contact tracing runs us close to boundaries of privacy and personal security, so it must be handled wisely. But it must be done if we want to resurrect a way of life and earning that resembles what we've come to know as normal. Tracing is predicated on testing. It is embarrassing, humiliating and revealing how the US has failed at implementing testing. Even with both, we cannot expect a quick return to a vibrant economy. 
    The executive branch has failed miserably, ignoring warnings, firing key personnel, having not a clue about strategic reserve, and acting like amateurs. Because of that a total shutdown was a panic button response. It will take a lot to reignite the economy and even more to repair the damage.

second looks

creativity rocks

   Musicians, visual artists, performance artists, journalists and writers have been a shinning light in the pandemic darkness. Their efforts, while not as heroic as medical workers, are up there with grocery personnel, first responders, mail and delivery drivers and have provided immense service.
    Show hosts, news reporters and entourage casts have found a way to work around the logistic nightmare of not being in studios or being able to work together. 
    Saturday Night Live has delivered 3 at home programs that have been increasingly more sophisticated, tight and entertaining. Sam Bee and Bill Maher, working from their homes have continued their cutting edge satire. John Oliver has continued his deep dive into absurdity, corruption and failure. Seth Myers, Stephen Colbert, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon have continued to find ways to make lock down fatigued citizens laugh. 
      Musical artists have been extraordinary, working sans studio and bandmates. 
      There has been much to be immensely disturbed and worried about, but the artistic soul, expressed in myriad ways, should give us all a lot of hope.

aspirational behavior

     The same can be said of church and faith groups as well. They've found ways via Zoom, Facebook, Youtube and other streaming technologies to tend to the human soul, and provide pastoral care and succor.

      Teachers and parents have done admirable work in continuing education against extraordinary challenge.

      Millions of us have found a way through this historic passage. It is only human to long for "the way it used to be," but we've bucked up. Now is not a time to let impatience, idiocy, or selfishness set us back.

       There was a classic photo and commentary making the rounds. Protestors clamoring for a full reopening, not observing social distance, not wearing masks facing medical professionals, who have seen the worst of it, wearing masks and calling for reason. Someone noted the unmasked angry, some even with guns, cared only about themself, the masked, and socially distanced, cared about everyone.

       We deserve better than the selfish. We deserve better than their role model. 

rocks of ages

      

   Last year's visit to Scotland and Ireland put us in places that have withstood all life has to give, and have done so for centuries. Some even took over a century to build. 
    They've withstood plagues, fires, wars, including World Wars with bombing attacks, revolutionary change in culture, and attitude. Future changing history occurred in some of them. Generations have come and gone. They remain, like rocks for the ages.
     Regardless of your belief, these frames offer a sense of permanence, and the ability to endure and survive. They represent the heights of human skill, creativity, imagination and a sense of connection to the sacredness of life.
   

    Humankind can endure. We have it within us to be wise, and capable. It is ours to choose.

     Take care of each other.

      See you down the trail.

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.

Stopping the Virus and Halting the Descent to the New Dark Ages

a jumping off point

•    Much has happened since the now well traveled February post, Descent Into The Dark Ages. (read it here) The acceleration of Covid-19 raised the stakes, underscored the case we made made and deepened the divide. It has now prompted a question humans may lack the capacity to answer.
•     The 50th Earth Day passed, with cleaner air and a more resplendent Mother Nature than in decades, though she is giving evidence of a change of life and that too carry's questions and mortal consequence.

Lupine north of Cambria, Ca

greatness...permanence...

 human frailty

   One of the planet's majestic locations has been off limits as we sequester to battle. 

    Here we share from our collection and though it is not being there, one draws solace, and empowerment from simply seeing what reigns at Yosemite in the High Sierra.

     So, we shall frame this conversation with images of the towering strength of nature. Our thoughts, like the human behavior we ponder, may borrow consequence or they may betray an incipient and temporal value especially when viewed between these frames and measured in such an exalted and dignified environment.  

     

we need data

   We do not know enough about the Covid-19 virus, or the why and how it attacks.

    We need data and an accelerated learning curve and with all dispatch and capacity! People at work on this say we need profiles to understand why it works differently on people. 
    The more we know, the more testing then becomes a piece of a targeted response. The global shutdown was the emergency panic button, because civil authorities, politicians and governments had not been paying attention. Scientists, journalists, authors, intelligence analysts and strategic thinkers warned us, and they were ignored. 

    There is a lot about this virus that is curious. It has made some think it could be an engineered virus or one that rapidly mutates. We just don't know. We need to learn about it. We urgently need to know how each of us, with our own specific biology, will react. 

and so what is the value of human life?

     In midst of this 21st Century pandemic, we begin to take measure. We compare when and how nations and their leadership reacted. And we are pushed to walk along the razor's edge of putting a relative value on life.

     How quickly do we "reopen" a devastated global economy? Fear of illness couples with fear of financial ruin for millions upon millions. Something has to happen and here again we measure how nations have responded. Who gets help, how quickly, efficiently, and in what proportion?

     This debate summons all of us to factor what is it worth? How quickly should we try to return to normal? It opens a debate about numbers. If the government provided more financial aid to everyday citizens, and small businesses, giving them more of a pad, could that delay the return to closer contact that in turn prompt's another outbreak? 
       We debate how much can the government afford? Is a payout now a way to avoid a larger economic crash? We are correct to ask why are huge and endowed institutions getting government funding? Why are large corporations, and successful businesses getting a bail out? Should those that avoid paying federal taxes get help? Should the Trump family business get aid?
       Dredged up is the old conundrum; Why do Republicans think first of business, and Democrats think first of individuals? 
        I wonder why and how have we turned human life into such a material and commercial pursuit?

    the divides

    There is no kind way to say this. Millions of Americans are unwise. They are poorly educated, bereft of a knowledge of history, uninterested in detail, have limited understanding of the complexity and nuance of government, get their "news" from dubious sources, often social media, were not schooled in critical reasoning, think of life as a kind of on going Super Bowl, live to be consumers, are identified as low information and yes, they can vote. 
     The most recent National Report Card found that only 15% of American 8th grade students had a "reasonable knowledge of US History." Education Secretary DeVos said "students can't discuss the significance of the Bill of Rights or point out a location on a map." We should be frightened by this. It is part of a multi year trend. So, perhaps I should say, millions of Americans are stupid.

a brewing storm

     So with that and this administration as a given, now factor in the push from business and the very real need to address the economic vitality of millions. In this mix, we frail,  imperfect and not so well informed bipeds undertake a calculus; what is an "acceptable" casualty rate to again turn on the engines of capitalism?
     The easier part of that, is how and when to pay for it. How much should government help? How hard should we press corporate, and some times untaxed wealth, to help make people whole. Those corporate empires need people to buy their goods or work for them. People come first. 
      The more dire questions is, what values most, life or the economy? I don't think humanity is up to that now, if ever?

     Military leaders have borne this awful math through history. Now that calculus jumps into the human drama in the disguise of what's good for business. Economic dislocation can prompt huge casualties of its own, and bring a human suffering and misery, so the mechanics of our governments and business sectors have to do something. But honestly, can we trust this government to make that decision? Can we trust the man who spends two hours an evening in some kind of insane performance to pull the trigger? He certainly is not up to it.
       Unprotected people protesting for opening the states, motivated by a tweet are part of an idiot storm. 
      A President, fit for the job, qualified and with the character of leadership would have made sure we, and the world, were better prepared. Doubt that? Consider the US response to all previous dangerous outbreaks.
       I worry that important issues, and aberrations that need "full on focus," may get kicked down the road, like so many other critical matters lost in the idiot storm since 2016.

     So, as we have sequestered, the earth is healing. And we've found new ways to live. We are learning lessons of freedom, restrictions and how to moderate the difference.     
     I've missed the human contact, and seek it, but not until we know more.

celebrating spring

Lana's garden, Cambria

I told my granddaughter this old Queen Anne's Lace is now a sparkler

Lana's Iris's 
My English grandmother and great aunts called them "flags."

Cheers to Hemingway! 
He demonstrates a good way to self isolate.

    Stay well. Take care of each other.

    See you down the trail. 

"Love In The Age Of Virus..."

Tracking North and West from Top of the World Cambria

time to think

    Exile at home. With your calendar mostly scrubbed, have  you had more time to think? That could mean worry, dread, maybe compassion, thankfulness, love, or that you want a new couch, to paint the wall, or rearrange something. Things are different and changing out there, so is our perspective.

     Planet earth is breathing easier, and groaning less. Civilization has slowed and is on the verge of changes, the shape of which we can only imagine. Another nudge in our evolutionary trip. Our minds have been contorted and our thinking pushed to permutations. We have questions, the answers are missing in action.

     Philosophers, never over employed and who make a practice of thinking, that is what they trained to do, will tell you this is a time of inspiration, discovery, emergence. 

     I tell you it is time to pay attention to a tree, this tree.

San Simeon Creek Road, San Luis Obispo County, Ca

tolerance 

or 

endurance

     Not sure which is most appropriate. I think of this tree as a teacher of Tolerance and Endurance.

     Every breathing soul on this planet knows more about tolerance and endurance than we did a month ago. We've watched unimaginable scenes in hospitals, death without family, overworked and under protected medical teams, a system unprepared and overwhelmed. We've been anxious and witnessed fear, loss, new stretches of grief and have seen an heroic sense of duty and selflessness, every day.

     We've also witnessed stupidity, deception, and the perfect illustration of wretched classlessness and incompetence.

 So, this old tree can teach us a thing or two.

              Look at what it has experienced in its lifetime.

    Landowners frequently run barbed wire fences near young trees, and nature runs its course. The wire imbeds in the growing tree.

  If the cosmic recycler tells me I'm not ready for heaven and have another lap to do on the blue planet, I might ask to come back as a tree or elephant. So, I'm one of those who think this must have hurt. This is a living thing, ingesting torturous and never ending barbs, almost to the core.

  The tree grew and stands tall and strong.

  

    For this fine tree, the "new normal must" have taken some getting used to, don't you think?

     

how will change look

    How do you think things will look and work on the other side of this planet closing virus?  No one has been here, so every expectation is valid. Still, there are some who study and calculate the imponderables.  

    Small business owners, working people, school children, and all of us are right to hope a "strong economy" can be reengaged. We are right to expect the federal government to make things better. 

    On the other side of Covid-19, supply chains and dependent retail operators may evolve how they function. Shoppers likely will behave differently.

     Sports, big venue events, concerts, travel, and education will adapt, shudder, and perhaps even shutter. 
     Extended care facilities and nursing homes face hard challenges. 
     Faith groups have adapted with video technology, holding together, while isolated. Zoom, Facebook, YouTube and other streaming could foreshadow a future where maintaining buildings and campuses is costly and a growing challenge.
     A new business sector is likely, specializing in sanitation, storage, and disinfecting. Fashion may respond with safe wear masks, cover ups and the like.

     Creatures of habit, we will accommodate what is required, grump and whine about some of it, but quickly try to find a groove and maybe even a rut again. 

     I'd like to see a change in politics, the disappearance of the professional. As we look for treatment or vaccine, we could look to "heal" politics. 
     If we take money out of the election calculus, some will leave the business and perhaps drag the money hustle of elections with them. Campaigns cost millions, annoy like hell, do little to enlighten, appeal to childish or brutish cues, and we don't need that. We also don't need the ideologues, one issue zealots, business lackeys, or egoists. 
     I'd like people to demand public servants, emphasis on servant, instead of most of what we've got now.

looking around outside

 Iris in Lana's garden, Cambria

 Poppies on the back hill

    Something that has not slowed nor isolated are the hummingbirds, almost drunken with frenzy around the Echium or Pride of Madeira.

     I hope you've had time to think and to pay attention to the signals from nature in the spring. Life returns.
     And pay attention to the trees in your life. 

     See you down the trail.