Postcards from the forest - close to home

I went in kicking and screaming. Concerned less with protecting life than with the economy. Perhaps that would come as a shock to the people who know me best, and know me as the nature lady, the dog lady, the mountain woman. It took me several days to go through an emotional process not unlike the grieving of death. One of the initial phases was a kind of mental paralysis, and it was all-consuming. I got on Facebook and asked the simple question - am I the only one feeling this way. And some seventy other people chimed in and we talked it through. Kindly. With differing opinions perhaps, but cordially.

I wasn't alone. That mental and emotional numbing and confusion was common even among the people I perceived as having their act together and their game face on.

Then every day a new rule. Another restriction. More closures. Measures being taken to protect us from ourselves. Every day another bit of personal surrender. Through the frustration I sought to find gratitude for the basics. Like breath. I am here, very much alive, inconvenienced yes. But alive. Thriving on some level. Able to look, listen, choose. Choose to wonder if this could be the end of a way of life that was familiar, but stressful and ultimately damaging, and the beginning of something new, different, better, cleaner and more humane.

The nights are brighter now. The moonlight shines fierce and the stars seem to have multiplied. The freeways actually function as designed. There's not so much pressure, angst, anxiety. There's weighing every decision against the standard of whether or not it will be potentially harmful to others. What a revolutionary way to go about our business. As if our actions matter.

What if we don't go back to normal. What if we rise to something better. More balanced. Easier on us. Easier on the planet. Kinder to all of our relations. What if more of us work from home. What if more of us get three day weekends. What if we have a critical shift in consciousness and realize a sense of contentment with what we already have, who we are, how we live our lives and what we stand for. No, really. What if we understood this as a wake-up call about what really matters, and it made us better, happier humans...if this could be our transformative portal and we came out the other side of it wiser, more balanced, better stewards of life as we know it.

So here's a pictorial look at some little things. A bee resting on a flower on the front porch. Morning mist. Happy dogs. A deer just before dusk. Little things to be grateful for. Who ever knew that all the things we took for granted could be so thoroughly upended, and that we would suffer so much so quickly as a result. Let's be grateful for what we still have.

(These images come to you from Redbird and the Forest Recovery Project. You can support our work by shopping with Amazon Smile at no cost to you. Amazon donates on your behalf when you shop. Sign up here: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/77...)

To learn ore about Redbird, visit us at www.RedbirdsVision.org