This year ends as strangely as it began. From almost opening up and the expansion back into normalcy we’ve have collapsed back down into this place of isolation and uncertainty. We seem to be in this cultural societal unmooring of our normal traditions. We are grappling with a new way of being in the world. A new way of being with each other, new ways of communicating and interacting. There’s a strange awkwardness to this as we kind of navigate and discover. Building the skills and language of what was once( taken for granted) normal family and friends events and traditions.
Wi-Fi and the internet have become the new portals to old traditions, memories, greetings, and gatherings. Engaging in the physical world with our family and friends has become a tangle of protocols and questions. What is safe? What is possible? How do we create inclusiveness when there are clearly risks and dangers to each person’s individual decisions about covid and how they want to be in the world with it. The New normal is unsettling and even unsatisfying. It doesn’t meet our needs and also prolongs our isolation. Our ability to find ways to meet those needs is also a perilous tangle information and uncertainty with shifting mandates and suggestions. What we can and can’t do.
So in the middle of all of this…. at this odd junction. At this normal holiday season, my message is we have to adapt. Adaptation is evolution and sometimes if done right it’s revolution. I think the gift of what is happening now is that we can build on to make the world to be different. Change is not easy These things don’t come because they are easy. They come because we want something different through a process of awareness. The last two years have given us this gift. We want a world that offers us safety. We want a world where we feel like our wages meet our needs. A world where we can all find safe affordable housing. A world that is not being torn apart by war. A world where the food supply and the food chain is both sustainable and healthy. Nobody goes hungry. Every one has access to to medicine and education. We have these tools in our modern world that allow us to continue these conversations and to discover and brainstorm. Maybe even Barn raise the next generation of traditions that mark not just the grief of what we will lose because of what we’re going through but will in fact uplift us into a better vision for us, for the planet and beyond.
May the Holidays gift you with grace and the magic to inspire you into exploring the possibilities of next year
Shaman @ Large 