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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: Healing your head
By
Published: Mar 16, 2020
Category:
Health
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
Yo-Yo Ma: Dvořák – Going Home” (from Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”)
“In these days of anxiety, I wanted to find a way to share some of the music that gives me comfort.” More to come.
—-
HOLD THIS THOUGHT
“You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.”
– John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
—-
On a plane, the emergency instructions are clear: When the oxygen mask drops down, put yours on first, then fit one over your child’s face. Not that you need that instruction. You know: You can’t save anyone else if you’re gasping for air.
And now are all on a plane in distress. We believe — we hope — we will get to our future and be safe, but to do this requires both massive hope and faith. And massive denial: the pilot, who should project calm and intelligence, is dangerously stupid, perhaps even crazy. In a nightmare no one could have anticipated –– though we might have, because this guy signaled his complete lack of interest in our welfare from day one –– we are on our own.
Nobody knows what’s ahead. Stephen King, tweeting about the virus: “I never know the ending when I start to write. All I can tell you about this story is that we are only in the last third of the first act.” But we all know this: Our first task is to stay healthy… to build our immune system… to spend two weeks in something close to isolation. This will be challenging for everyone. It will be more challenging for people with children and millennials, who have spent the last week in search of the most crowded bar in town. Twitter: “This pandemic is like watching a slow motion train wreck where you CAN yell at the participants to change their actions, but they just flip you off and say Ooooookkkkkkkkk Booooooommmmeeeerrrr (you know, in slow motion).”
History offers perspective. “Your grandparents were called to war. We’re being called to sit on the couch. We can do this.” And we can do more than that. Again, from Twitter:
“One day in 1968 Neil Young spent the whole day in bed with the flu and his guitar. Wrote ‘Down by the River,’ ‘Cinnamon Girl’ and ‘Cowgirl in the Sand.’”
“When Isaac Newton had to leave university because of the bubonic plague, he invented calculus and defined the theory of gravity.”
When Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote “King Lear.” (Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker TV critic and Pulitzer Prize wnner: “When Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he masturbated incessantly.”)
It’s tempting to power down and feed our heads with “Law & Order” binges. No blame there. But we get karma points if we start a project, read a book, clean our closets, and, above all, be useful. That is our ultimate goal: to stop thinking about ourselves 24/7, to serve, to make this time better for others. It starts with listening to others, at length, without judgment, but with massive empathy. (The term of art is holding space.)
Getting out of our own way so we can help others begins with self-help: acknowledging our fears, starting with the fear of your death and the death of loved ones, so we can chill the internal buzzing and be present. That is a challenge. I flunked meditation. I take comfort and find stability in music and books. If you’re also in that tribe — that is, if you feel a lot and send your feelings directly to your head — some of these suggestions may be useful.
JAMES TAYLOR, “AMERICAN STANDARD”
His voice announces, “You’ve got a friend” — a JT song is often a lullaby for adults. With exquisite timing, he’s just released an album of 14 classic American songs. I have small affection for show tunes, but these soothe. [To buy the CD and get a free MP3 download, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
THE ITALIAN TENOR
Maurizio Marchini serenaded the entire town of Florence.
JENNIFER BEREZAN
“ReTurning” is one idea, 52 minutes long, not quite a loop, definitely a drone. The idea is hymnal — a chant “returning…. to the mother of us all” — with occasional solos in several languages. It is instantly mesmerizing and calming. I quickly got beyond that and just listened. Closely. The calm resumed. I went somewhere. And, true to the title, I returned.
[To buy the CD from Amazon, click here.]
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA
For a week, free opera, one per night.
FREE MUSEUM TOURS
ManyOr click on your local museum.
FEED YOUR HEAD
Over the weekend, the Dutch government ordered all bars/restaurants/gyms/schools/etc to be closed till April 6th so people lined up to buy…..weed.
REIKI
Reiki is not “energy medicine.” It does not require a diagnosis. The practitioner doesn’t need to concentrate or “direct” the treatment. The practitioner need not be in the same room, or even the same city. The patient need not be awake for the treatment to work. So what is Reiki? According to Pamela Miles —– who is probably the senior Reiki master now practicing in the United States and is the author of Reiki: A Comprehensive Guide — it’s an experience. More like meditation than medicine. As she describes it, it’s powerful stuff: “Reiki opens an inner spiritual connection that can significantly change the way a person experiences life, a sense of connectedness that can help transform negative attitudes and create a sense of meaning and purpose.”
Pamela is offering live, interactive teleconference Reiki Self Care training so you can stay balanced through this challenge.
Pema Chodron: When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
Pema Chodron may be a Buddhist scholar, but she doesn’t talk or write like one. She rarely uses technical terms. She comes across like your smart, no bullshit next-door neighbor. We don’t get, she says, that fear is our friend. Or that it’s “a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” Instead, “we freak out when there’s even the merest hint of fear.” Which only makes our situation worse. And then everything falls apart — “we run out of options for escape.”
This is an important moment, she argues. Because this crisis isn’t just a test, it’s a healing. We can, we think, “solve” the problem. Only we can’t. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Thich Nhat Hanh: Being Peace
“Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us all around us, everywhere, any time.”
Be flexible. Pay attention. Breathe deep. Feel the day. Do all these things, he says, and you are on your way to “being peace.” Only then, he believes, can you be effective.
To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.)
