I looked at this photo the other day (taken about four years ago) and thought how something about it both encapsulates this time we all share right now and defies it. Bare faced. Close. The people in it are lost in their own realities as much as they are connected. And even the way she is circling the spoon around in that cup looks subversive.
I used to be late for work all the time, or late coming home. I blamed it on the cats (one of them threw up again, can you believe it?) or on a demanding work project. But really I was having an affair with the Sonoma County landscape by way of my new handheld camera. To and from work I sought the light, swell of hills, dance of trees. The surest way to fall into rapture.
The world of woo has changed pretty radically in the past 10-20 years. Slowly, surely the occult has become less other, and today we have influencers and celebrities freely endorsing their preferred mediums and shamans. CEOs now take vision quests and share these experiences with their leadership teams. Certain astrologers and their kin have even become celebrities themselves. Practices that were once strictly supernatural have become… well, kinda super regular.
I recently went upstairs to the little closet sized room with the sweet window that hides at the back of my 1912 house. I stretched out on the shaggy white rug in there and decided I’d try to meditate. I had a tension headache and sometimes moving it through meditation can help.
I’ve been plugging away at the same few orchid plants for a few years now. Do you have this problem? The plants arrive in full bloom, of course, but a couple of months later they’ve morphed into the sad little asymmetrical things I’ve come to call Phalaenopsis nakedis. No flowers. Nada. Maybe a new leaf every blue moon.
A little over four years ago I went through the biggest transformation of my life. It happened fast, yet was a long time in the making. Difficult and complex. And as simple as an exhale once I allowed it to happen.
There’s a big movement happening, and it seems to me it is coming from the earth up. I can feel it under my feet on my daily walks, which I now commit to in taking care of myself. It’s been a long time since I regularly walked for my health. I’ve got a little more time for it now with work going remote, a little more flexibility. But that isn’t the real reason.
Our neighbor Ashley came over a few nights ago. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: WE ARE IN QUARANTINE, WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE CAME OVER??
Believe me, Ashley is well aware of the pandemic. She didn’t want to come over. I could hear the hesitation in her voice when I called, my own tone panicky, pleading.
These are early days, still. This fact, if nothing else, seems clear.
We are “social distancing” and this is wise. We are trying to shop generously by leaving something on the shelves for our neighbor. Netflix hasn’t crashed (yet), which would undoubtedly send the quarantined over the edge.
We are witnessing the changing trajectory of our world in real time.
