That though the
radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight.
Though nothing can bring
back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower.
We will grieve not, rather find
strength in what remains behind.
William Wordsworth
For those of us who have not yet been designated Essential Workers:
It’s a good time to step back and explore this unexpected gift and shift of time/space/distress. What are our skills, practices and attitudes that may
provide solace, insight, direction?
But first,
how can we just describe what’s happening?
Jolt,
seismic, fissures opened. The airlines have been helping us understand this for years with kind,
but firm warnings of “Unexpected
Turbulence” and “Things May Have Shifted”. Did we listen?
The portals have moved.
There's an Imbalance. There are changes in
mood, sleep, body, vision, hearing, memory, centrality, responsibility,
visibility; a hunger for something
more, yet different. The Third Eye blinks? Who am I when I am no longer doing, no longer
productive, no longer indispensable to so many others? No longer wearing the masks? Where does my attention go? Am I
shedding objects, clothes, books, body? Am I grumpy, angry, annoyed, foggy,
sad?”
As poet W. H.
Auden put it: We are being lived by
powers we pretend to understand
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