Occupation in Isolation

Thomas Seddon, Penelope "then during the day she wove..."

This post is lighter than the last. Contemplation has turned to anxiety, and the result is a list of occupations for those of us in isolation, whether by choice or by local government decree.

Books In The Time of COVID-19

Lots of lists have been published, and I'll link to a few. But here is a list of books (read by yours truly) about loneliness, isolation, and solitude to add to your growing reading list.

1 - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
No, it's not pleasant, but it's real. When the news headlines begin to feel like being in the pages of this novel [ie, GILEAD and their drug Remdesivir finding FDA approval for experimental treatment of Coronavirus under the "rare disease" provision (which grants them 7 years exclusive patent with no generic version available during that time = FULL PROFIT), abortions being suspended in many states as "elective" surgeries, and therefore not necessary during this national pandemic, and women's health remaining a low priority in many states of our union], it's time to remind ourselves that Atwood composed this novel using facts compiled from human history. She has said in interviews that she never intended it to be a road map *laughcry.* In any case, there is deep resistance, resilience, and resonance with current events, despite the fact that the novel is over 30 years strong.

2 - Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Still relevant. Yeah, you probably had to read this at some point in your past. "The first modern novel!" "The first novel written by a woman!" There is more to this book, in fact, and 200 years later there are still lessons nestled in the pages. Artificial Intelligence and other scientific advancements like medicine and drug research are teaching us that science isn't always right and that family bonds can make or break children. These times we are being given to deepen our relationships with children and loved ones will matter to them when they are asked where they were during the 2020 CV19 Pandemic.

3 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
We must learn what we are when we are alone. Can we stand our own company, or does the thought of it drive is bats? Hearing voices on the wind? Swearing there is a madwoman in the attic? What is this pandemic trying to teach us about slowing down, solitude, enough? Will this period in history spark the next great Bildungsroman where a hero/ine of a certain age learns and further defines themselves and their "place" in society (or in this case, the natural world)? Read on, dear reader, read on!

4 - Circe by Madeline Miller
Or, how to make lemonade out of the lemons of being outcast by the Gods. Maybe you know the story of Circe, the "witch" from Homer's Odyssey who turned Odysseus' men into swine. Here, this mysterious and powerful woman is finally given the story she deserves. She is resourceful, cunning, determined, and so too must we be in the face of being responsible for the health and welfare of our communities. (For something in a similar vein, check out The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, a glimpse into what happened to Penelope when her husband Odysseus went a-gallivanting for 20 years during the Trojan War.)

5 - Ulysses by James Joyce
Probably the most polarizing novel of modern literature, for whatever reason, now is the time to read this masterpiece of Celtic lyricism, if you haven't already. Here's what you need to know: it's loosely based on, yes, The Odyssey. The characters are not necessarily physically isolated, but they all think they are isolated in their minds (very modern!), and feel they are terribly misunderstood. It's also a travelogue of Leopold Bloom through Early 20th century Dublin--a tour you can actually take once travel bans are lifted!


Other lists of note:

Top 10 Books About Loneliness (The Guardian)
Top 10 Books About Being Alone (The Guardian)
11 Stories About Isolation and Loneliness (Electric Lit)



Playlists for Social Distancing

Don't Stand So Close to Me : Songs for Social Distancing (Colorado Springs Independent)
A Playlist for The Socially Distanced (NPR World Cafe)
The Social Distance Experiment : A Collaborative Playlist on Spotify

On Being Called IN

Pandemic, Panic, Pandemonium

It is here.
Now.
Whether or not we listened and believed predictions.
Whether or not we feel quarantine and social distancing and sheltering in place are over-reactions.
Whether or not we feel personally attacked by these limitations, or are crowing about civil liberties.
Whether or not we feel the need to seek conspiracies at the root, find someone else to blame.
Whether or not we can cope, or adapt, or endure.
Here we are.

Now that we all know the name of a specific strain of a virus that has been with us since the 1960's,
Now that we have all the toilet paper, and bottled water, and meat, and bread, and milk, and eggs,
Now that we have purchased all that there is to purchase to pad our enforced stay-cations,
Now that we have consumed all news bits and blurbs, educated ourselves with inflammatory headlines, glanced at charts and graphs, watched the ads for organic hand sanitizer, and bidets, and the best plague masks and ventilators,
Now that we can only order take-out from our favorite dinner spot,
Now that the foreseeable future of distraction has been foreseeably cancelled,
Now what?


There has not been a pandemic in our lifetimes. Anyone who might have survived the global spread of influenza in the early 20th century is over 100 years old, if they are alive at all. We do not have ready examples or stories of how to BE in times such as these. These stories were very likely told, probably even heard. But were they re-told?

Humans are perhaps the only animals with the capacity for storytelling. Witness some of the greatest stories ever told--the myth and creation cycles of indigenous tribal cultures around the world, of which the Igbo, Vedic, Celtic, Nordic, Slavic, Australian aboriginal, indigenous American cultures are just a few--all whose stories have been handed down from generation to generation (and sometimes captured imperfectly in written word) via the forgotten practice of oral tradition.

The human animal is living through what is known in many tribal cultures as The Great Forgetting. Modern humans in the post-Platonic world have lived with the belief that Man is superior to Nature. The moment Nature was demoted to the status of object, mankind altered their trajectory drastically. Objectified "things" become subject to dominion, they become commodity, can be owned and traded. The natural symbiosis is thrown out of balance. This is the root of Dis-ease.

Already, in the few weeks of human quarantine and isolating in place, nature shows signs of recuperating from this disease. In China, the air is clearer as factories remain closed. In Italy, skies are clearing, but so are the famed canals of Venice as motor boat and gondola transit is halted. Wildlife is returning now that the water is clear. Our planet, our HOME, can breathe freely for the first time since the middle of the last century.

We Are Being Called IN

What are highly contagious pathogens trying to tell us? Re-framed, we might ask, what is the wisdom of this illness? Spiritual and deep ecology philosophies strive to remind us of our interconnectedness, that we are an organism with a vast footprint in the natural world. Fear and anxiety are preyed upon by groups interested in maintaining the status-quo, those who profit from mass consumption of their products, and those whose enforcement of this philosophy has brought them some sort of power (such as political groups, corporations, religious organizations).

We are being being called in. The natural world is answering our forgetfulness with supporting documentation, as it were. "Sixty percent of infectious diseases are zoonotic--the originate in animals. " That we are susceptible is a not so subtle reminder that humans are not somehow superior--we are animals in an ecosystem. How we treat the "least" of us--meaning the rest of the animal queendom--can and does have drastic consequences for the human animal. Global deforestation has led to an increase in infectious diseases such as Lyme and malaria, and our economies have brought these and others like West Nile virus and SARS/MERS across the globe from their places or origin.

There is also speculation that life as we have known it will be forever changed by this pandemic, and that social distancing won't be for a matter of weeks, rather 18 months or more. Economies, individuals and the cultures we partake of will need to adapt and change, though they are already doing so (see, shut-in economy). But these adaptations only serve to provide us with more of the same--consumerism, disposable convenience culture, more trying to control our environment and outsmart or hack our nature.

The lasting solution is not there.

We are being asked to walk small.

Right Relationship

How can we make real, lasting adaptations that bring our ecosystem--that being the entire planet--into balance? How do systems and institutions move from imperialism and capitalism and models based on power, to a modern version of how we lived before The Great Forgetting? How do we bring ourselves back into right relationship and good stewardship of the land, creatures, and environment of our ecosystem? These are the questions I am pondering over the course of the next few weeks to months sheltering in place. 

I am thinking about a sustainable skills I might practice--sewing, cooking, growing my own food, making art, telling stories, meditating in nature, making natural medicines and teas, observing and learning from other plant and animal neighbors who share the places I also inhabit, remembering how to live on and with less, and discover what constitutes enough. I am practicing social media distancing, reading only vetted news sources, and these only occasionally. I am taking lessons from Hawk and Squirrel and Dandelion. Observing (the bird's-eye view), Industry (maintaining hearth and larders), Resilience (bloom where planted). I will take long walks in nature, in the small patch I steward, and in the local parks and green ways. I will visit the river and watch her complexion clear. I will see how life goes on, and know that all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well (h/t Julian of Norwich). I will connect with loved ones near and far in ways that are supportive, appreciative, and genuine as well as sensible and safe.

Such times as these, we must be the change agents, the balancing points, the examples. We will be humble and learn and share and expand, all for the greater good of all, as opposed to a few, or for just ourselves. Perhaps this new phase of human culture will be called The Great Re-memberment, or The Great Becoming. May it be!

Eternal Return

Here We Go Again

What is it with me and blogging? Why this need to be seen, to bare my soul at a deep level to mostly strangers? To speak to the unknown, the mirror? To forever mar the blank page and call it--what?--beauty? Rhetorical questions all, and they may never have their answers.

Yet, I return to writing. Ever and again--eternally. It's not that I believe I have anything particularly ground-breaking to say, or that my experience is all that interesting. The hope of fame or notoriety is absent from my motives. This part of me that asks for a reason, for meaning, perhaps it is the driving force behind the eternal return.

When I consider what has been the most intriguing about my history of journal-keeping, diarist documentaries, these pages of pondering, is the growth and expansion I find between writing and revisiting at some later date. I receive an hawk's eye view of emerging patterns, deeper motives I hadn't seen before, and an outline for the deep personal work and reformation of self that began the moment I first wrote in this way at the comparably innocent age of 10.

Author's Note

Everything you read here is colored by the writer's personal experience. These are the words of a white woman of a "certain age," with some higher education, and continued self study in the realm of academia. I'm a feminist, a mother, a sister, and daughter (she/her/hers). I am a pagan, a witch, a practitioner of ancestral animism rooted in Northern, Western and Eastern Europe. I am a creative, a vocalist, a ritualist/ceremonialist, writer and poet, songwriter and musician. I work with oracles, vibrational energy, plant and animal allies, planets and stones and stars. I will ask your sun, moon and rising signs. I read--a lot. I love words and learning languages: I speak three, read five, and would know more. I hold space for those who navigate the wild seas of healing themselves from trauma and deep wounding. I wish always to use my privilege to lift up, amplify, and encourage marginalized voices and those who never had the opportunity to speak. I am a cancer survivor. I am a rape survivor. I have complex PTSD from both. I am healing myself.

I am becoming.