We have been in lockdown. We have been quarantined since mid-March 2020. We are expected to wear masks when in public places. Stores and restaurants and bars were shutdown, many to never open again. Businesses have closed. There is massive unemployment. People are infected with Covid-19 and some are dying.

And worse yet, we have a toxic president pushing for a fascist regime. He is up for reelection in November and his campaign is deeply rooted in white supremacy. He is hell bent on destroying not only America but the world. I’m terrorized.

I could write a list of what is wrong but it would be too long for the post I want to write. I will say only that we need real change. We need a universal awakening to stop the engrained systemic racism resulting in police brutality and injustice and inequality in every aspect of life.

We are destroying our home. We have raped and pillaged our only source of life. This just might be the end of us. And yet we persist in this destruction. My heart is sick.

And yet, the earth will heal after our self-inflicted demise, there is no doubt. When we no longer strip the forests, pollute the air, soil and water; when we are no longer here to burn down our home, the earth will recover. I should be hopeful.

While I wake every morning to face yet another day, to sort through what new tragedy has taken place, what new atrocities await us… how much money we spend on war machines to annihilate innocent people, to count how many children are in cages, how many refugees are in transit, and are hungry and homeless, how many US citizens are homeless and hungry, and not to mention the working poor, I become more cynical and without hope. I can hardly take it.

And yet, I am one of the lucky ones. I have shelter, food, clothing family and friends, but that brings no solace. Solace will only come with real and lasting change. History teaches us that only hatred and greed are the only constants in this world.

You will argue with me, I know that. I have heard all the arguments. There is nothing new that you can come up with. NOTHING!. You will say, “but look at all the beauty that surrounds you: nature, music, all of the arts, people who are good, people who are protesting and working towards a better world.” I know. But that doesn’t make change. It never has and I doubt that it ever will. I feel desperate.

But my initial intention for this post is to celebrate our mother, our great mother, who would provide for us everything we need if we weren’t so full of hate and greed. We do not understand her.

Two people have mentioned the changing of the season though we are not quite half way through summer. Do we somehow, intuitively feel the change, see it in the shadows, and see the end of life of earth’s flowering? Fruit and vegetables and all that carry seeds are ready to burst and fall upon the ground.

I have resisted and complained when folks start talking about the season’s ending when we’re fully engulfed in the present season. But I am beginning to understand and to embrace it. I think this follows my lack of recognition of changes in my own body.

I was never really conscious of my own, very intimate, monthly cycles of ovulation and the impending expulsion of my eggs in a flood of fluid and blood. I never experienced PMS symptoms or cramps with my menstrual cycle. I never knew when those changes were about to take place or were taking place until there was obvious evidence. And when the cessation of that cycle came, I wasn’t conscious of the internal changes taking place. I didn’t equate the changes of my emotions and psychology together with the changes in my body. The symptoms of menopause were slight and short-lived.

I am not saying that I didn’t sense the changes as one season was ending or another beginning but I was fully present: summer was summer, winter was winter, etc. Don’t talk to me about spring when it is still winter.

I am just beginning to understand how others more overtly acknowledge and accept mother earth’s cycles, her seasons and how that pertains to my own lack of consciousness of my own cycles… her barreness, her fertility, her impregnation and fullness of pregnancy and then her birthing. And of course there is the building up to each cycle, so I should have been able to put these together. I could be more joyful at the slow turning of the seasons and to welcome other’s acknowledgement that they sense the preparation of the mother to the changes.

Though the universe, the planets and the stars, tell us that the solstice and the equinox turns on this date or that date, we are in the fullness of earth’s cycles everyday and even in the smallest of increments.

How to tie the world’s demise to the earth’s resilience? Well, as chilling March turned into April, winter awoke from slumber and sprang forth in exuberance. Trees grew leaves and flowers. Sprouts burst out of the cold soil. Color was everywhere. Even in April’s cold rains, life emerged, undaunted by the turmoil produced by humans.

If I could wish for anything, it would be peace and justice and a consciousness that this earth is our mother, the very source of life, and that everything is dependent on our loving care.

So friends, let’s talk about the changing seasons. Let’s talk about how “a change is gonna come”. Let’s talk about it. Just maybe it will.