I struggled with what to write about for my May post. Would I write about the ridiculous notion which has countless Americans buying into the idea that COVID19 is a hoax? I could write about how it is fool hearty for us to even consider lifting stay at home orders when the number of infected patients are still rising daily. The list goes on due to the rising pressures, frustrations, and anxieties that are surrounding each one of us.
Yet what I really want to talk about is a shining example of the goodness and compassion of humanity. During times of utter sadness, fear, and the unknown, we need to keep talking about things that warm our hearts, remind us there is beauty and happiness in life. So, for the next few monthly posts of mine, I am going to be highlighting specific communities, organizations, and peoples that are doing extraordinary things during these uncertain and challenging times. The first community that I want to talk about is the Sikh Community.
Continue reading “Look for the Helpers: The Sikh Community by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”
This Easter was a challenging time for many of us. I could never have imagined that my daughter Sarah and I would end up spending the holiday at home alone — or that we would have hot dogs and tater tots for Easter dinner
I’ve been thinking a lot about something my grandmother would always tell me: “When life hands you lemons, sometimes you have to make applesauce.” I know, it sounds crazy, but life right now appears to be more on the crazy than the sane side.
We are in the midst of a global crisis unlike anything we’ve seen during our lifetime. Admittedly, I gave the situation little attention, even when relatives were under forced quarantine in Italy and cases were piling up in California where many of my family and friends live. It’s typical; we often don’t realize the seriousness of a particular issue until it is one we experience ourselves — we can empathize, but can’t fully understand something that hasn’t hit home.
The last few weeks have been difficult for me. I was already feeling raw from the treatment of refugees in Greece, the upheaval of impending Brexit in the UK, the fires devasting Australia and the Amazon, and so many other tragedies going on in the world. Then on Christmas Day I was thrown completely off balance by someone shouting abuse inches from my face, in a space where I had believed myself safe.
Scientist Susan Simard is a professor of forest ecology at the University in Vancouver, British Columbia, who has been studying the below-ground fungal networks that connect trees and facilitate underground inter-tree communication and interaction. Over a period of more than thirty years this field scientist and her students have learned how fungi networks move water, carbon and nutrients such as nitrogen between and among trees as well as across species. Her research has demonstrated that these complex, symbiotic networks in our forests — at the hub of which stand what she calls the “mother trees” — mimic our own neural and social networks. This groundbreaking work on symbiotic plant communication has far-reaching implications that include developing sustainable ways to ‘manage’ forests, and to improve tree and plant resistance to pathogens. Although much of Simard’s research occurs in forests, she has also studied the underground systems of grasslands, wetlands, tundra and alpine ecosystems.
Who knows when each of us first learns that sensation—the sensation of being misunderstood. My hunch is that it comes early on in our lives, maybe even before our brains are making narrative memory, maybe even before we have begun to understand much of anything about ourselves or the world. But it doesn’t take much for the seed to be planted in us that the world won’t always understand us.
Feminism and Religion 