Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 30

Diary 49

Wednesday, May 6th

My neighbors usually run a busy restaurant, but since the lockdown they’ve found doing take-out orders to be far less demanding. Over the last few days they have taken their yard in hand. Bushes have been pruned, trees trimmed, areas that had become somewhat over-grown have been cleared, and the whole place transformed.  I liked the way it was before – a little wild – but the new look is amazing.

They then extended operations to clearing the basement. You know how basements can be. Well, theirs has now been cleared, cleaned and rendered immaculate. I mention all this at such length because this sort of cleaning is contagious. It’s wonderful, positive energy. Soon I was doing something similar in my own basement. And it felt really, really good.

Psychically, clearing space in one’s home environment often leads to clearing space in one’s mind so new ideas can arrive. We are, each of us, preparing for the new life we’ll lead after this is all over. My hope is that it’ll be a life less frantic, less cluttered with superfluous stuff, more Zen. I hope this for everyone.

Diary 48

Diary 48

Tuesday, May 5th  (Cinco de Mayo)

Today’s big excitement was the arrival of some house guests, about ten thousand of them. Yes, bees. My son-in-law released them from their transportation box and ushered them into the new hive. I’d have taken pictures of the mass of bees covering the wax forms but I had one hand on the smoker (to keep them mellow) and was a bit preoccupied, actually, as the small creatures flew all around me….. 

Bees are suffering greatly, all around the globe, as pesticides make them less able to resist natural illnesses or kill them outright. I hope this little colony with thrive and prosper. No bees = no fruit. Perhaps this will help to make a difference.

At around the same time I discovered two more four-leafed clovers. I suspect this is a very lucky spot.

The death toll from Covid-19 reached 70,000 today.

Diary 47

Monday, May 4th

A delightful talk this evening with Barbara DeLong on Blogtalkradio, exploring the six archetypes of love. I do so enjoy Barbara’s interviewing style. Check it out if you want to learn a bit about what we’re here on the planet to do – which certainly has something to do with love.

I’ve been reading War and Peace with almost breathless enthusiasm, and I’m almost done with it. I know I shall feel bereft when it ends. Today a quotation called out to me, and seemed appropriate for some of our politicians. I’ll share it with you.

“There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent”.

Diary 46

Diary 46

Sunday, May 3rd

Out in the garden, again, getting the veg patch ready and enjoying the sun, I saw this little chap. It’s a five-leaf clover. So I took its portrait.

Last summer I found a six-leafer, picked it, put it in a book, and now I’ve lost it.  I should have taken a snap and let it be. I guess that old deep-seated desire to own and control things needed to be unraveled….

Diary 45

Saturday, May 2nd

Today really should have been May First, because the weather was fine and clear and it felt as if something had shifted, changed, and got into gear. We’re still under the same lockdown, but one’s attitude to it is different, somehow.

The protesters in Michigan are still making noises. But let’s be frank: there are very few of them and the media seem to be making a big fuss because, really, there’s not much else that is eye-catching and ‘newsworthy’. Let’s stop giving them all this attention.

Meanwhile I am still assailed by email pleas that we have to ‘fight’ against ‘tyranny’ and donate to this ‘action committee’ that will ‘defeat’ or ‘crush’ the adversary, or whatever. I’m not sure if this makes much sense. If one fights an opponent all that happens is more fighting, more misery.  The tides of history swirl around us, and struggling against such forces is like trying to push a river. What we may want to do is use our energies differently. 

What this means in real terms I cannot tell, as yet. I suspect it may begin in the area of labor relations.  When Americans stop allowing themselves to be disrespected and exploited for just a few grubby banknotes things will change. Today, as so many Americans cannot work at all, we are already witnessing some changes. People are refusing to work in conditions that are potentially fatal. Good. It is a job. You do it so you can have a life, not so that it destroys your life. Perhaps we are starting to revalue the worth, the beauty, of life. Perhaps we’re already saying that unbridled capitalism truly isn’t the way we want to live.

Diary 44

Friday May 1st

The first day of May, traditionally, has been a holiday – whether it be the choristers of Magdalen College, Oxford ‘singing in the summer’ from the tower overlooking the river, or the May Day celebrations of workers in Europe.

We didn’t get any of those today.

Such celebrations, based in antiquity and very much pre-Christian, helped people to mark the changing seasons and the cycles of life (and death).

Canada marked it by banning assault style weapons, which connects neatly with the life/death connection.

Which is why I felt it important, in my own way, to mark the occasion with a few quiet moments of gratitude to be still here, alive, knowing good things are happening, as well as bad.

I hope you were able to do something similar, perhaps.

Diary 43

Thursday, April 30th

63,000 deaths, 1,056,236 serious cases, 30 million unemployed (and that’s just the ones they’ve counted), yet Bezos makes $75 billion in this time of lockdown.

Numbers do say something, don’t they?

Meanwhile we have armed protesters (without facemasks) in Michigan. Again. We haven’t seen that in any other country. I don’t like the lockdown, either, so I dug in the garden.

Diary 42

Wednesday, April 29th

In Douglas Adams’ classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the largest computer ever made works night and day to answer the question ‘What’s the meaning of life, living, the Universe and everything’. It comes up with an answer, eventually, and it is … 42. Today was the forty-second day of the lockdown and no answer even remotely like this has yet surfaced.

Meanwhile Trump and Pence prowl around (without facemasks) like angry customers at a garage, enraged that their vehicle hasn’t been fixed yet, conveniently overlooking that they were the ones who broke it in the first place. 

Talking to people (on-line: of course!)I find I sometimes run into some opposition when I mention that this can also be a time of opportunity and reflection, if we choose to make it so. Not for everyone, comes the reply, and then follows a series of comments about the less fortunate and the hardest hit.

Please – no one is turning a blind eye to those who are suffering. The million people who have the disease in its severe form and the 60,000 dead are indeed frightening facts, and let’s not forget all those who have lost their livelihoods, and whose lives may never ‘go back to normal’. If we think our world will return to the same mess it was before then we may probably strive to make sure that this is so. In our bones, though, we know that some things will have to change. 

Let’s start thinking about how that can happen – even with the lack of leadership in the White House. There are more of us than there are of those self-serving lackeys.

Diary 41

Diary 41

Tuesday, April 28th

Today’s good weather clearly brought people out of their homes. There was more traffic, for example, and plenty of people seemed to be out and about as Spring worked its magic on us all. Even though we know it’s not all over yet, and may not be for some time to come, what I like is the human spirit that said, I choose to live my life rather than stay locked in. I’m not advocating doing anything dangerous. Remember the numbers: over a million cases were recorded today, with just short of 58,000 deaths. Vice “president” Pence declined to use a facemask in public, but we all know he’s a whack job. What I’m suggesting is that we all have to find a way to live with this ghastly threat, to cope with it sensibly, and not to be paralyzed by fear.

It’s a tricky balance.

Diary 40

Monday, April 27th

Forty days in the wilderness – that’s the Biblical term – but we still don’t seem to be in sight of the Promised Land or anything much. Still, if nothing else, many of us are learning how to be more patient. Others are beginning to realize that we can’t keep messing with Nature without some sort of negative reaction. 

On Tuesday (tomorrow as I write) my neighbor goes for his second cancer surgery, after having been delayed for several weeks because of this virus. His surgery is vital and urgent; his cheerful refusal to descend into gloom at the delay has been heroic. A lesson for us all, I feel. 

I set about digging a new vegetable patch. It began to rain and I tidied thing up, then looked down and saw this. Here’s wishing us all good luck.