In permaculture, perhaps the most perplexing of the twelve permaculture principles is this one::
How could that be? You ask.
Well, let’s apply the principle to the present world-wide infusion of F.E.A.R (False Evidence Appearing Real) brought on by the so-called corona virus. And yes, it might even be a”real” “virus”! But what does that mean? What’s it for? How can we turn our perceptions upside and down and inside out as we sit here, quarantined, isolated, wondering when, if ever, life will return to “normal”? Maybe it won’t return to normal. And maybe, just maybe, we don’t want it to. For:
What If the Virus Is the Medicine?
In our little Green Acres Village, this morning we gathered in the greenhouse to do more planting. Don’t worry. Not even ten people . . .
Last night, rather than our regular Thursday Community Dinner, we just held a pod dinner and meeting. And guess what? Did you realize that yesterday was Spring Equinox? We almost forgot, since it came so early this year, and everybody was otherwise preoccupied (think: endless stream of info, misinfo, disinfo on “virus”).
So, before eating, rather than linking hands for the blessing, we knocked elbows to honor the quarantine, while lighting a single candle in gratitude for the Sun’s increasing light and heat.
The Spring Equinox, folks, in tropical astrology, is noted as 0° Aries: The “Aries point” of new beginnings. Where the old growing cycle is done and the new one not yet begun. The space of the present moment, of the presence, that sacred hushed pause that appears, and expands, between the outmoded past and the unknown future.
So let us get, and stay, present, folks, in a newly topsy-turvy world where unforeseen circumstances continuously appear “out of the blue:” where what we used to do, and who we used to be, and the stock market and other “stuff” we used to own, have blinked out like a supernova. We really do have no choice. It’s either live, truly live, come alive! — or die.
Oh, and before we schlepped our food over to the third house for dinner, a surprise. Podmate Gabby had left two very special beers in our mostly cleaned out fridge, along with two slices of lime. Housemate Dan and I — newly christened as The Young Man and The Old Lady — yelped with joy as we opened the fridge door and voila! Indulge!
P.S. Note Vitamin C and Zinc in the background. There’s also elderberry tincture there, though not visible. . .
