What Can I Say?

I write an uplifting post, and then I get slammed against the wall figuratively.

 

I want to be uplifting, and then something awful creeps in. 

 

My daughter comes home ranting because her elderly charge wants to continually watch the news, driving my daughter nuts. The news will not let up. It’s one crisis after another. They search for worse case scenarios. They languish in it. And it is mostly about the Coronavirus. On the other hand, my daughter is into the Law of Attraction and how we create our own reality.

 

BAM! What a collusion.

 

At home, I write. And for research, I stumble upon the picture of a drop-dead gorgeous Somalian woman and find that the African country of Somalia is “The most failed state on earth.”

 

While the Western World obsesses over a flu pandemic, Somalians are dying of malnutrition.

 

Malnutrition is preventable. We worry over making a vaccine—yes, make one, but what about feeding the people of the world? Feeding people should be much easier than creating a vaccine, which I imagine is as complex as launching a rocket into space. We have food. We have planes.

 

We have the capability of growing food, thank heavens, and we have the capacity of getting that food to people who need it. These people are dying of preventable diseases, lower respiratory infections, diarrhea, meningitis, TB, malaria, malnutrition, and maternal conditions. For women, there is a lifetime risk of death in childbirth of 1 in 22. In Somalia, 1 in 7 children dies before they are 7-years-old. Only 14.6% of women have access to contraception. The average Somalian woman gives birth to 6 children and then watches many of them die. 

 

If that is not a crime, I don’t know what is.

 

And what is their greatest export? Terrorism.

I am of the thought that you teach a person to fish and they can take care of themselves, but people need full bellies to listen long enough to be taught. And when you worry about where the next meal is coming from you aren’t prone to long thoughts about the nature of reality.

 

In Somalia, Halima Omar said: “Maybe this is our fate — or maybe a miracle will happen, and we will be saved from this nightmare.”

 

I pray for miracles.

 

On the home front: Spend time out of doors.

 

This is what I wanted to write about when I got distracted.

 

In a study of 7,300 cases of Covid19 in China, guess how many caught the disease outside?

 

Two. 

 

Well, I was right about wanting a house with no walls. I love the outdoors, which makes me wonder about the lectures we are getting about staying inside. Go outside. Just keep your distance. The trouble with a house having no walls is you need to live in a warm climate. We live in Oregon.

 

The Dragon’s Eye School in Hawaii had an ideal construction. Poles held up the roof, but that was all. The school was a large roof, period. The parts that needed protection, tables, books, and such, were located in the center of that canopy, far away from the wind and the drifting rain. It was still too hot under that overhead, though. And when it rained—which it regularly did, everything needed to be protected from the moisture. 

 

It’s hard to get it right.

 

The children, though, had free run of indoors and out. That’s right.

 

When we lived in Hawaii, we kept the windows open all the time—with no heat and no air conditioning. A room, screened on three sides thus allowing a wonderful breeze to waft through, was shaded by a tree. The Lanai, we called it, had no glass and exited off the kitchen. We liked having our meals there by candlelight so much that we never installed an electric light. 

 

It did get cold some nights, but a comforter fixed that. (And wool socks in the morning.)

 

In Minnesota, early testing following the Black Lives Matter protests suggested that SAR-CoV2 outside is rare. With thousands of people gathering, talking, yelling, chanting (at least some wore masks), out of 13,000 protesters, only 1.8% tested positive. 

 

In the Western world, humans spend 90% of their lives indoors. The average American spends even more, 93%.

 

For years scientists have sounded the alarm that our disconnect with the outdoors is linked to many chronic health problems. Luke Leuring, director of sustainable engineering of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, says that a “misalignment with nature in buildings is partly to blame for the scourge of chronic diseases, and the current pandemic. Lack of airflow and sunlight is obvious. Temperature, humidity, and indoor air pollution play a role. Leuring says we need to cultivate our indoor spaces like a farm.

 

It’s complicated. Scientists know how to create an immunization better than we know how to balance our lives.

 

I used to think that nobody walked, that was until we moved onto this street. Our street runs for four blocks with no cross streets and no sidewalk, so everybody walks down the middle of the road. You can go out with your dog at 2 am, and chances are you will encounter somebody.

 

 I’m happy the people walking our street are healthy—adults pushing strollers, babies, kids on bikes, dogs.

 

When a doctoral student in Dubai asked the question: “What is heaven?” No matter the faith, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, heaven was always a place with a garden and running water.

 

Oh, say, we live in such a place now. 

 

 

“If you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to achieve, then you become an instrument of God. You help the soul of the world, and you understand why you are here.”

—Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.

 

When we have scenes such as this one, I, for one, believe that the world should and will continue. How about you?

 

 Protect the babies.

Merry Christmas

 

I had to stand on my desk to get this photo, and then edit out my toes.

I launched a new site today as a showcase for my books, little, big, good, bad, whatever.

And as a Christmas gift, I am offering a small eBook, 22 pages, 4,351 words, so we won’t be together long. It’s The Seven Secrets.

Happy Solstice Tomorrow, whoops, it’s after midnight, well, today. ! I hope you will be able to see the Christmas star this evening, and that we have Happy Days ahead.

Jo

Sneak preview into The Seven Secrets:

Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.”

--Charles M. Schulz

INTRODUCTION

Twenty-five years ago, on a beautiful spring afternoon, two young men graduated from the same University. They were much alike. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both—as young college graduates are—were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently these men returned to their college for their 25^th reunion. Both were happily married. Both had two children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same company after graduation, and were still there.

But there was a difference. One of the men was the manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president.

 What Made the Difference?

 Let’s find out.

To read, please

The Christmas Star

 

 

We’re stirred up, disquieted, on edge, and uncertain about the future. Everything seems political when it doesn’t have to be. We can’t agree to disagree. We have to begin a campaign saying that Black Lives Matter when it should have been a given. We’re worried that we might catch some dreaded virus. We’re concerned that the cure might be worse than the disease. We worry that inoculations might be mandated. We argue over whether the world is getting warmer when the winter zooms past us so fast it makes our heads spin. There is little we can trust. We believe we have honest elections, and then someone wants to overturn them. We want to know the “truth,” but truth depends on the ones saying it. We can’t rely on the media to separate “news” from propaganda. Censorship is running rampant. We realize now that a foreign country might not have directly interfered with a past election, but they interfered with our psyches, about the same as now—they kept us stirred up.

 

Keep the people in a state of frenzy, and you can get them to do just about anything.

 

Daughter dear told me a Media student said, “That’s what they taught us in school.” 

 

A former KGB agent said that one way to brainwash a country is to keep them from coming to a logical conclusion. 

 

That’s the bad news. 

 

Now for the good news:

 

 “The beauty of the present moment is a powerful tool in any uncertainty.”-- Dezmein Bluray

 

What if we took our attention off the bad news and decided that we are the ones to make a brighter day?

 

Bullies crumble when you ignore them. 

 

Our founding fathers set up a system that is working.

 

Be grateful.

 

If water, rice, and plants respond kindly to love over anger, think about what kind thoughts and positive belief in a grand future would do for people. 

 

Don’t believe that plants, water, and rice respond? Check it out. (Daughter and grandson are setting up an experiment. I’ll let you know how it turns out.)

 

The Anthropologist Margaret Mead said, 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” 

 

I’m counting on you guys.

 

There is a phenomenon among people that they get bored and want an Adrenalin rush to get them stirred up. 

 

We remember mountain top experiences, our first crush, first kiss, weddings, births, deaths. Most everyone old enough to know John F. Kennedy remembers the day he was shot. Mothers remember evens according to their kid’s ages—“When Johnny was 6, we went to Yellowstone Park, and so on.”

 

Why do we need a marker in time to change how we look at the world with a new set of eyes?

 

Is that what this lock-down is, a marker? We will remember the year 2020. I’ll remember the fashion statement of the time was, “Oh, darling, I love your mask.”

 

I have never put much stock in Astrology—I like to read Rob Brezsny  

for he is so clever,and gives good advice. But do the planets and stars affect our bodies? I don’t know. [At this point, my computer froze, and I had to close down and reboot. Was it trying to tell me something?]

 

Okay, I’ve done the rebooting, and now I’m back (with the question of, “Can my emotions affect my computer?”) As I was about to say: 

 

On December 21, the winter solstice, there will be a Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that hasn’t been seen for 800 years.  At exactly 05:00 PM - 05:45 PM Pacific Time. they will be at their closest, only 0.1 degrees.

 

And the wonder is, WE WILL HAVE A CHRISTMAS STAR!

 

That is from our perspective as the two planets become close they will appear to us as one gigantic star. Some think this was the star of Bethlehem.

 

I don’t know if the conjunction will affect our body. It could have some magnetic, electrical affect. I don’t know. We’ve evolved on a planet that is a magnet; perhaps slight changes do affect us.

 

Daughter dear and I decided to do something special on December 21. I don’t know what it will be, light a menorah maybe, although we are not Jewish, we want to honor those courageous souls. Smoke a peace pipe—that would be honoring other souls. (What shall we put in the pipe?)

 

We need rituals to mark days and to keep us from wandering off track.

 

Suppose you are a believer in the Law of Attraction. In that case, you know that being lazy with our thoughts, observing what’s happening out there, will bring more of what’s happening out there. Play the ain’t it awful game and we get more of Ain’t it Awful. And that pushing against something only causes something to push back. (Our cat is an excellent example of that. Try to move him, and he becomes cement. 

 

The real work is changing our thoughts. 

 

“Wayne Dryer said, “You’ll see it when you believe it.”

 

Here’s to enjoying winter’s great high holidays.

Love,
Jo

 

“We are the children, we are the ones to make a brighter day, so let’s start livin’.”

 

To view the Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, look to the Southwest sky one hour after sunset. If you have a small telescope so much the better. Don't expect it to be as large as the picture above unless you take a rocket ship out of the atmosphere, or looking through a telescope on Mt. Palomar.