Upstate New York is in a deep freeze. An almost Duluthian sort of deep freeze. It seems to mirror the humanitarian deep freeze that we are entering...except that there are countless spectacular, warm, loving, exceptional beings in evidence at the same time. May many of us be beautiful exceptions, every day if we can...
I'm truly grateful to be in a warm place. It's so interesting to consider the exquisite perfection of earth as a habitat for us humans. Temperatures in the 60's-70's seem to be the ideal for functioning, indoors or out. Much hotter or very much colder, it becomes impossible. If I were under a roof of an unheated home, and it had been -10 F overnight, I would probably have fallen asleep and never woken up. It was natural that humanity has always tried to stay warm in the winter...what was arguably unnatural was the notion of spreading out in individual structures all over the landscape, using resources so un-communally. I try to imagine my ideal early community of humans, approaching the wisest among them with a question for the Goddess, "How can we best warm, house, feed and clothe ourselves without causing you (or earth, or our fellow human and animal beings) undue pain?" The Goddess representative would probably have provided an answer which would look very different from the solutions being used and proposed these days.
While all of these things surface and swirl around us, may I never forget that I am protected and warm, this minute. May I stay in the present. May I never take anything for granted.
