Algiers
Dayle in Limoux – Day #44
August 18, 2022We are not alone. The wise ones who walked before us have left luminous footprints for us to follow in our own apocalyptic time.
‘It takes a contemplative mind to spend months living and working in relative isolation because of a devastating pandemic—and not lose hope.’
♡
-Mirabai Starr
Julian of Norwich
John of the Cross
More from Mirabai.
‘Mystics see through a lens of paradox: dazzling darkness, beautiful wound, the longing that is the remedy for longing. Paradox points beyond itself to a truth that both transcends and includes logic, a truth that is alive, generative, and whole. Such a dynamic mode of knowing demands our complete attention. . . .
What does a religious woman who dwelt in an anchor-hold during the Middle Ages have to do with you and me today? Julian endured a long and cruel pandemic. The disease ravaged her community and carried off the people that she loved. She learned to shelter in place, focusing on cultivating her interior landscape and sharing the fruits of her wisdom through the window that opened from her cell onto the busy streets of her city (think computer screen and Zoom), where she offered counsel to visitors . . . each day.
And how could a renegade monk, who survived the Spanish Inquisition despite the Jewish and Moorish blood that flowed through his veins, have anything to teach us about flourishing in our own dark nights? John of the Cross illumines the transformational power of radical unknowing. He rekindles our latent longing for union with the Beloved and, through sublime poetry and precise prose, blows on the flames so that they dance back to life in our
beleaguered hearts.
He reminds us that when everything in us wants to rush out and fix the problem of our brokenness, both individual and collective, the wisest and most loving thing to do is to be still, letting go of our attachment to the way we thought the spiritual life was supposed to feel and the sense we assumed it should make.
Once we step out of our own way, into the dark and empty vessel of the soul, “an ineffable sweetness” will begin to rise, permeating and nourishing the quiet earth, uncovering a resurrection we never dreamed possible: a dazzling darkness, a radiant night, a revolutionary newness
of being.’
(This essay, and others, is included in the Oneing/Unveiled book illustrated above.)
Our ancestors, on standby and ready for our inquiry. Reading earlier this morning from YES! Magazine:
Defenders of the system [Capitalism/Philanthropy] cannot rightfully claim they were not warned. There are warnings against overreach and hubris in the founding myths, literature, poetry, and scriptures of nearly every culture on Earth. In Western literature, for example, the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), for one, is not the creature but its creator, who refused to take responsibility for what he’d done. Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick (1851) is a further warning about the penalties that accompany uncontrolled obsession in pursuit of ignoble ends. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor gave a further warning about the perverse logic of necessity; in The Brothers Karamazov (1879), the Grand Inquisitor says to a silent Christ: “In the end they [the people] will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, ‘make us your slaves but feed us.’ They will understand at last that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together … they can never be free for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious.”
Good essay.
‘Sometime after Adam Smith published ‘The Wealth of Nations’ in 1776, the logic of brute force infected Western economics, informing its underlying proposition that all men (mostly) have insatiable wants that justify tearing up the earth, polluting it, or frying it to death. By this logic, human survival is deemed uneconomical. But why would any even modestly sane person run the risks of destabilizing the Earth’s climate? It is impossible to comprehend the depth of nonsense in waters so turbid.’
The Disaster of Philanthropy and Capitalism
by David W. Orr
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Reading about the fires in Algiers, 38 have perished thus far in this rapid and large burning fire. The planet is burning. Gaia is crying for our help.
France 24:
‘Forest fires that ravaged 14 districts of northern Algeria—a country with an already limited amount of forest.’
The country is south of Spain and east of Morocco.
Everyday I feel as though all news and information should rake away anything that doesn’t deserve what should be the planet’s number one priority: C L I M A T E. Imagine if the media focused on climate like they do president #45. I mean, if we don’t have a planet that is inhabitable, and vast majorities of people are migrating to simply live, it probably won’t matter a whole heck of a lot what he did, what he’s going to do, or what he blabbered about at a rally.
Learning that we can all do our part, however small our gesture or effort, like eating less meat, driving/flying less, removing lawns, reuse, change out older appliances (CFC’s), and lastly, hugely, V O T E for candidates who 1. Believe in climate breakdown and 2. Will work to save our planet, release the grip on U.S. fossil fuels, and amplify every step of progress that could heal our planet, collective micro efforts will create shift. WE MUST ‘LOOK UP.’ From YES! magazine:
100 Things You Can Do to Help in the Climate Crisis
In case you needed help getting started.
A New Social Justice: Solutions We Love
[YES! Magazine]
‘To heal ourselves, we must remember that we are a small part of a much greater whole.’
-Adrienne Maree Brown.
~
Buying real estate is France. Some incredible finds and quite affordable, especially when comparing housing prices in the u.s.a. right now. This is fun. A couple of guys bought a village (!) in France.
More from Julian of Norwich, lyrics based on her well-known and often shared quote:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Receive the gift of healing
from the well of tears;
be washed anew
by grief and sorrowing.
Receive the gift of healing
from our mother Earth,
her deep and dark
and secret verdancy.
Receive the gift of healing
from the shaman’s touch:
the wounded healer’s power
to revive.
Receive the gift of healing
in the arms of love,
embraced in passion
and compassioning.
—
Covid. It is not over. 500 people are still dying every day in the United States. Here in France absolutely no mitigation. Many people are out and about coughing, congestion; could all very well have Covid. Even the woman who own my building, back from the hospital after two weeks, being in a coma and on respirator, will not wear a mask. Or her family. She is getting stronger, her breathing more fluid. Thank, Gaia. Yet she has not fully recovered. So. Doubling down. Again. My heart is so sad knowing how many immune compromised stay in isolation, many away from friends and co-workers…families…because they can not chance being ill. There is still so little known about the disease and it’s long-term effects. From Axios:
‘A new large-scale Oxford University study finds that people who’ve had COVID face increased risk of neurological and psychiatric issues — brain fog, psychosis, seizures, dementia — for up to two years after infection.
- The study found anxiety and depression are more common after COVID, though typically subside within two months of infection, Axios’ Rebecca Falconer writes.
Why it matters: The study, published yesterday in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, is the “first to attempt to examine some of the heterogeneity of persistent neurological and psychiatric aspects of COVID-19 in a large dataset,” an accompanying editorial says.
And Monkeypox, reportedly can infect asymptomatically. And now polio is back due to lack of vaccines in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan; travelers/migrants can bring those viruses into another country, and many parents have opted not to vaccinate. A man in New York who contracted the polio virus is now paralyzed. Apparently, some of the vaccines…not in the U.S….vaccinate with a ‘live’ virus and that can be problematic when they do travel. This is what reportedly happened in New York, according to one doctor. And with our climate breakdown, will be seeing, and contracting, more viruses. The CDC’s choice to basically eliminate precautions, i.e., physical distancing and isolating when testing positive, is baffling.
VUELTA❗️ Starts tomorrow in S P A I N! 🚴🏻
CyclingNews:
‘The 2022 Vuelta a España starts on August 19 in Utrecht, Holland, and ends in Madrid, Spain, on September 11. The 21 stages include a team time trial, an individual time trial, several flat stages and nine of the often-steep uphill finishes the Vuelta has become known for.
Two years after the pandemic caused a postponement of the Vuelta a Espana’s Dutch start, Utrecht will finally become the first city in the world to organise the opening stage of all three Grand Tours after the Tour de France in 2015 and the Giro d’Italia in 2017.’
Jusqu’à demain.
✿