Reveille!

 

 

 

 

Recently, at his neighbourhood’s nightly tribute to health professionals and essential services workers, my friend played Reveille on his bugle. Reveille! A call to arms --and also a wake-up call!

Many environmentalists are hoping that the coronavirus will turn out to be the wake-up call which encourages us to change our ways. Last week on Earth Day, ecologist Thomas Lovejoy describes the virus as a wake-up call, stating, “We have to re-chart our course”:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/22/environment-pandemic-side-effects-earth-day-coronavirus

A number of journalists have noted that, as we have changed our behaviours to contain or avoid the virus, there have been positive effects on the environment. Cleaner air. Clearer waters. The liberation of wildlife. The air in London is cleaner. The Himalayas are visible in Northern India. Wildlife organizations report that people are seeing more birds and hearing more birdsong – although that may be partly because we have more time to pay attention to them. All such reports indicate that we can change.

We don’t need to be as excessive as we have been in our shopping, driving, and jumping on long-haul flights for too many holidays. We can stay home. We can even work from home. We can participate in classes and conferences via Zoom. We have proven that.

Clearly, we’ve experienced a bit of a mystery. We’ve learned that our behaviour can change profoundly and swiftly, in the twinkling of an eye.

It makes me think of Handel’s Messiah: The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible…And we shall be changed.

It’s worth listening to Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly’s rousing rendition of this transformation!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13DpmWPV9IU

 Jane Goodall, 86 year-old primatologist and anthropologist who also spoke on Earth Day said, “I just hope that, when this is over, we're wiser.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/jane-goodall-on-lessons-from-the-pandemic

But will we be any wiser? When this virus is over, will we be changed, or will we just return to our workaholic, profit-driven, careless self-indulgences which are  contributing daily to the devastation of the planet?

It’s not yet clear. A friend who until recently had traveled frequently acknowledged, “Well, after all, it was a bit excessive, wasn’t it?”

It was indeed. We’ve seen that the climate crisis is a human problem, not a planetary one. And, across the world, the lockdowns have shown us how quickly the natural world around us can adapt and thrive when we step back.

But not everyone will see things that way. Probably we will not all be changed. Yet if enough of us woke up and thought about the everyday choices we make, and if we then chose to live more responsibly and thoughtfully, we could make a real difference.

 

 

 

 

Angels

 

Many years ago, when I was working on my Master’s thesis, I became interested in angels, largely because of their presence and significance in some of the books I was studying: Lawrence’s Stone Angel, Wilson’s Swamp Angel, and Watson’s The Double Hook.

There are many references to angels in literature.  Jack Kerouac wrote a semi-autobiographical novel called Desolation Angels. William Carlos Williams wrote of Allen Ginsberg that “he sees with the eyes of the angels." Gregory Corso, who has been described as a “streetwise angel poet,” wrote quite a lot about angels, including a passage I particularly liked in his poem "Power":

Angels of Power come down with cups of vengeance

They are demanding compensation.

People! Where is your Power?

The angels of Power are coming down with their cups!

 

I've also always liked the description of the hierarchy of heavenly angels with its nine levels from the first sphere (Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones) to the second sphere (Dominions, Virtues, Powers) down to the third sphere (Principalities, Archangels, Angels.) They are all powerful, but the angels are the only ones to actually walk amongst us, in part because they are the only ones who have feet.

Leonard Cohen wrote songs and poems about angels, and he spoke of his interest in angels in a conversation with poet and novelist Robert Sward. “An angel has no will of its own,” he said. “An angel is only a messenger, only a channel.”

https://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/sward.html

By definition, angels are known to appear suddenly, to have a quality of illumination, and to carry a message. That came to me with regard to an observation I heard recently. In explaining his reasons for liking Dr. Bonnie Henry, my friend’s son said, “She’s like a combination of the best Mum you could imagine, a razor-sharp scientist, and also an angel.”

Dr. Henry does meet those angelic criteria: appearing suddenly on all the media, having a bright presence, and conveying important messages.

These angels work in mysterious ways. They are channels that make us connect things – across years, generations, landscapes and dimensions. They make us pay attention to their communications, often about very important things that are not easily seen and that require work to comprehend.

In the conversation mentioned above, Cohen said, “We sense that there is a will that is behind all things, and we're also aware of our own will, and it's the distance between those two wills that creates the mystery that we call religion. It is the attempt to reconcile our will with another will that we can't quite put our finger on, but we feel is powerful and existent. It's the space between those two wills that creates our predicament.”

If we think of Nature as being a will that is behind all things, then perhaps this is a time for us to try to align our will with that larger perspective.

It’s something to think about.

 

 

Airborne vs. Ground-based

 

 

In the past, I thought the word “airborne” referred to an aircraft being off the ground and in the air as it is taking off. Now I think of it as it might apply to the coronavirus. What exactly does it mean if the virus is “airborne?”  Can small particles remain suspended in the air for long periods of time, with more people becoming infected at a greater distance? Or is transmission only likely to occur when the virus spreads from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth? There seem to be different opinions but, whatever the differences, I think everyone agrees on one thing: self-isolation and social distancing are the surest ways of preventing the spread. And, on the other hand, it seems pretty clear that people travelling on airplanes could assist the fast and widespread passing of the virus.

Now that very few of us are airborne, many are enjoying being ground-based. Never have I heard so many people bragging happily about what great shape their gardens are in! Here in BC, with the recent sunny weather, a lot of folk are outside planting more vegetables than ever, pruning their trees, thinking about turning lawns into vegetable patches. We are rhapsodic about the blossoming trees and the appearance of daffodils and tulips.

I don’t have a garden myself, but the people who look after the grounds at my townhouse have created brilliantly colourful beds, and the delight I experience from the beauty of those flowers helps to balance the stresses the pandemic is causing. Today two friends brought me tulips which are brightening my living room and giving me great joy. As well, my neighbour dropped of eight small geranium plants which I will plant in pots on my patio tomorrow. I will eagerly await their blooming along with, perhaps, the nasturtium seeds I've planted -- some of which will, I hope, survive the marauding of squirrels and robins who scatter soil about as they dig in my pots. (I don’t really begrudge those creatures their pleasures. It’s a time of generosity and connection with others.) When, on a rare outing, I drove by the home of a tulip-providing friend, I saw that she and several of her neighbours were out, well-distanced, puttering in their small gardens. Another friend tells me that it just feels good just to get her hands in the ground. “It is grounding,” she says.

It’s hard not to get a bit sentimental about gardens. I remember the lines of 18^th century poet, Minnie Aumonier’s, “When the world wearies, and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden.” That resonates these days. As do Theodore Roethke’s words, “God bless the ground, I shall walk safely there.”

These days, more than ever, being ground-based feels a lot better than being airborne ever did.

 

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Easter Miracle

 

 

Yes, Virginia, there is an Easter miracle! A great many of them, in fact, although, sadly, the disappearance of the coronavirus on this Easter weekend will not be one of them.

However, the appearance of the coronavirus has produced many small miracles. When you phone people these days, you don’t get their answering machine. They answer, in person! That’s because almost all of us are always at home now, following the directions of our Provincial Health Officer. And mostly we are not complaining about it but instead are taking this opportunity to paint home offices, build bookcases, bake bread, learn to knit, enrol in online French courses. A lot of home enhancement and a great deal of learning is taking place.

Great creativity is being unleashed right now.  People who had never thought of doing so are painting and writing. Many entertaining home videos are being circulated which are engaging families and amusing viewers, e.g. https://youtu.be/wdcS0Nbo7Ng (you can skid the ads.)

My brother passed on a YouTube clip of Colin Talbot, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Manchester, interviewing three Canadian experts about Canada’s response to the coronavirus -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV9mM-_FsoQ – which refers to a remarkable degree of collaboration within government and between federal and provincial governments in Canada. Not long ago, that would have seemed nothing short of miraculous.

The oceans are cleaner and the air is clearer; we are reducing our carbon footprint at an unprecedented rate. Who knew that it would take only a global pandemic to show us that we can actually do something about climate change?

Of course, we have to find ways of balancing the environment and the economy, but it’s possible that we could do many things differently. For years some economists and social workers proposed Basic Income as a means of covering minimal costs of living but such proposals have been rejected as being impossible to put in place. The loss of jobs as a result of the pandemic has caused governments in Canada and elsewhere to implement initiatives similar to the Basic Income approach, proving that, where there is a will, there is a way. Maybe some of these small miracles might continue after the virus has been defeated.

We are encouraged, day by day, by the increasing greenery in our world as spring arrives. On the west coast, daffodils, forsythia, camellias and rhododendrons are bursting into bloom each day. Nature is showing us renewal and resilience.

Here in my locked-down townhouse, I have my own small miracle. The Christmas cactus that so delighted me with its timely blooms in December has decided to blossom anew for Easter.

Miracles do happen. Happy holidays!

 

If We Could Talk to the Animals...

While most of us are self-isolating at home, all over the world there are animals taking to the streets. Wild boars wander around Barcelona, silka deer are seen on the streets and subways in Nara, Japan, gangs of wild turkeys are swaggering around the streets of Oakland California, and pelicans are gathering on Peruvian beaches. The virus that has us humans hunkering down at home has given free rein for many birds and animals to take over our territory. I’ve particularly enjoyed the videos of wild goats exploring the Welsh village of Llandudno:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/wild-goats-take-over-welsh-town-amid-coronavirus-lockdown-1.4876257

When we humans return to those places, we may need to develop better relations with our animal neighbours who are presently out there. I find myself thinking of Dr. Doolittle’s song:

If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages
Maybe take an animal degree.

Many vegans and animal rights supporters have spoken out about the dangers of zoonotic diseases, meaning those diseases started in animals before spreading to humans. Zoonotic diseases rank among the world’s most infamous examples: HIV, SARS, Ebola, and H5N1 influenza, for example, all percolated in wildlife before close interactions with humans spawned international outbreaks. And there have been others: the avian flus related to chicken farming, swine flu beginning on pig farms, mad cow disease, and so on.

The Guardian recently published an interesting article exploring the relation between factory farming and the coronavirus.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/28/is-factory-farming-to-blame-for-coronavirus

Recently there have been social media claims that COVID-19 could have been prevented if people ate less meat. These claims have been countered with suggestions that they are too simplistic or “partially false.” But, as the Guardian pointed out, they may also be “partially true.” And, if so, it may be the case that, as a friend suggests, “Animal culture represents a vast petri dish in which the very bugs that are killing us are being created.”

Maybe it’s time to take a moment to reflect on how we treat our animals. A vegan friend says, “It’s the cruelty that boggles the mind. How can something that’s so cruel be anything but wrong? Why can’t we leave the animals alone?” Although I am not a true vegan, I can’t help but agree. Keeping animals cooped up and penned in at very close quarters is cruel. Even the creatures that are “kindly” or “gently” killed deserve better.

Easter is coming up in a week with its attendant imagery and messages of resurrection. Perhaps, when this epidemic is over, we might consider no longer crucifying our animal friends -- for their sake and for ours. We might create a more humane planet on which we would care for all species. We might even try talking to the animals.