After waiting and waiting. The time has finally come. Grandma is fully vaccinated. The kids can come and stay. They are elated. I look at the bags to pack and realize – my pack in a heartbeat skill have faded. I’m back to writing lists and overthinking.
Seasons come and go They never forget how to Continuous flow
Can you smell the roses? Or the lilacs? I used to. Now I can’t. I hope smell-training and time will make it come back. But sometimes I despair.
I’ve always had a super nose. Been sensitive to smells. To the point of nausea sometimes. Now I miss it. Feel like I’ve lost a point of orientation in the world.
The reason of course is Covid-19. It was the loss of smell that made me sure I had it before even being tested.
It’s been a struggle. And a shock to realise how much taste depends on smell. In the beginning it felt like I couldn’t cook anymore, because I couldn’t taste if I seasoned the food right.
Now some smells have come back, and some things just smell wrong. Onions smell horribly. The coffee roastery no longer smells like burnt coffee, it smells dangerously chemical.
The purple lilacs Perfumes the summer evenings In my memories
One life Two hands Three in any holy trinity Four cardinal points Five sacred elements Six, love and sex, contain sacredness Seven chakras to shine clear Eight Sabbats in the wheel Nine, three fold law times three Ten Sephirots emanating divine light Eleven mysterious knowledge insights Twelve full moons, and one blue orange Thirteen witches in the magic coven
Nineteen, loving wisdom hope govern Twenty-Twenty karmic judgment appear, grow better, renew, global catastrophe draws near Twenty One light’s biannual turning point Twenty Two spiritual paths to ascend the three
What will the world look after the pandemic? How will the geopolitical landscape change? How will that affect me personally? Will one catastrophe lead us to accept responsibility for, and take action against, the looming human made climate emergency.
Even before the pandemic my life where in flux, changing. It still is. A history of unprocessed trauma, a newly acquired trauma activating full PTSD and leading to major depression, will do that to a life. But now the urgency to imagine a better future, for all humans, feels even more acute.
So what should I do? Change career? Change residence from city to wildwood? First step. Change myself to the core! Rewriting those programs that prohibits self-love, true self, esteem, courage to live my truth, my goals, my dreams.
In springs pale rebirth I see the truth of seasons Birth, growth, change, rebirth
Recall our midwinter feast Our hope and ecological fears as we laid the tens to rest A new decade for new beginnings at least Instead modern humanity put to one of our greatest tests
Now we shelter in place Curtailed from roaming free Lost within our inner maze Now we have ample time for truths, we might not want to face
So fortify yourself by recalling those hopes and fears Decide where you want to go from here So next time we meet, after our happy to be free tears We’ll start working to bring a better greener world near
This week in group we where taught a Mindfulness technique called 3 – 2 – 1, it can be done sitting or walking, eyes open or closed, and as so many other meditation tools for the beginner it’s easier achieved sitting still with eyes closed. So we start there until we can do it more freely.
It’s purpose is to soothe and calm an overactive mind.
Here’s how to do 3 – 2 – 1
State, silently or aloud, three things you See, Hear and Feel(as in perceive with a sense). Then two things of each. Then one.
Breath calm, deep and even during. Though the focus here is not breath but the world around.
I see purple tulips. I see rain drops. I see a stack of books. I hear the sound of typing. I hear birds singing. I hear the sound of wind. I feel the warmth of my sweater. I feel the chill spring air trough the window. I feel the wood floor beneath my feet.
I see purple tulips. I see a stack of books. I hear birds singing. I hear the sound of wind. I feel the warmth of my sweater. I feel the chill spring air trough the window.
I see purple tulips. I hear birds singing. I feel the chill spring air trough the window.
I have found this tool to work quite well, especially done in nature, but then all forms of meditation is easier for me there. Even writing a version now made me way more mindful and present in the current moment.
After four weeks meditating several times daily, it feels like a habit has formed, that I’ve completed the first step on the path. Now I’m looking forward to finding out what the next step is.
The attentive might notice, way more than four week’s have now gone since the first post. When I started this series, I envisioned meditating this intensely, mening around three hours per day, for the duration of the eight week – Compassion Mind Training – and writing a post for each week.
Then corona virus SARS-CoV2 causing the illness Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. And everyone’s lives changed. Including cancellation of all non-essential treatments to lighten the load on the health care system.
I’m happy and heartfelt grateful for having managed to make meditation a routine before the pandemic, and I’m proud to say I still meditate daily. It might not cure PTSD or clinical depression, but it helps to cope with both.
Going forward I plan to set up a page to gather my resources on Compassion Focused Therapy and meditation. I will also keep writing posts about my own experience and path. Reviews of tools, techniques, teachers, books and other resources. And share the insights I gather on the way.
The other day I ran across pictures of Guillaume Legros artwork Beyond Crisis. Ever since then It’s been on my mind. And today together with Go Dog Go’s Tuesday Writing Prompt it became a poem.
Pale spring, here again, nature awake. Bud burts, first bloom, slumbers reawake. Have the wisdom to real green deal undertake. If you can, ponder, modern world remake.
Bud burts, first bloom, slumbers reawake. Spring season, new beginnings, despite outbreak. If you can, ponder, modern world remake. Those on the frontlines, all heroes make.
Spring season, new beginnings, despite outbreak. Can we take outcomes and in solutions partake? Those on the frontlines, all heroes make. Do we realize , all that’s at stake?
Can we take outcomes and in solutions partake? Have the wisdom to real green deal undertake. Do we realize , all that’s at stake? Pale spring, here again, nature awake.
I don’t really know how the text and image relate, but I’ve had this image in the back of my mind a week now, wanting something, I couldn’t name. Eventually I meditated upon it and this is the poetry it inspired.