Life being, as always, a little uncertain for me (although it may be less so than I thought a few days ago), I am focusing on doing the things that will ground me, since that is one of the hardest things for this Aquarius sun/Pisces moon and Pisces rising. Taking short walks, sitting outside with feet on the ground, making homemade soup, even looking out my window at Lake Superior. She's still there. Phew.
It was on a walk yesterday that I noticed an outrageous number of blue masks, clearly used, then, literally, disposed of on the street and in people's yards. So many things went through my mind. First, the fact that anytime before 2020, you almost never saw blue masks anywhere except a doctor's office...certainly not on the face of the public or tossed aside like soda cans. Now they are ubiquitous. I tried to comfort myself that they were made of paper, and so might eventually degrade. But two seconds of research this morning taught me that they are partially plastic, so they are not recyclable or compostable.
The blue mask sitting there, covering up (what?) ten or twelve square inches of bright green grass, has become a potent symbol in the last 24 hours. The mask serves to block sun and rain from reaching the grass, and at least for a time, the grass may die. The very items invented to protect the public and health care workers from COVID, are, themselves, making it incrementally harder for Mother Earth herself to breathe. After their single use, these items are landing on the grass, on the sidewalk, in plastic trash bags at the dump, or in the ocean. Millions upon millions of them a day.
I don't know quite what to say about this. It is so enormous, where do you start? But it is almost as if the symptoms of this disease (fever/overheating and the inability to breathe and use other senses) are the very symptoms we are seeing in the earth herself, and her precious climate. Earth is becoming overheated, she cannot breathe, and she cannot cool herself with pure waters. Her struggle to regain health (more powerful storms, temperature extremes, and natural "disasters") are, of course, becoming our struggle. Indeed, there is no separation. We and the earth are one. But I don't think overall, as a culture, we have started to understand and embrace that reality.
My masks are multiple-use. I hand wash or throw them in with the laundry. That isn't really a solution, but I guess it's one small thing I can do today. Anything that grounds, connecting me to the earth and what she is going through, is good.
