Monday Musings for February 26, 2024

 Hooooooly moly, it's the last Monday of February and how the fuck did we get here? March starts this week, but the weather up here already feels like April or May. We've had a hell of a weird winter - a couple of snowstorms, but nothing like it used to be. We had a flood the week before Christmas with warm temperatures and rain washing out all the snow in the mountains, and the snowpack never really recovered. No ice fishing this winter, either, because it hasn't been cold enough for long enough to really build up a decent layer of ice in most places. By the end of this week, temperatures are predicted to be in the high 50s and possibly the low 60s - which, in an ecosystem that relies on snow and long cold winters, is not a good thing. 

Last night, I was reading more in the new book, Walking Through Darkness, by Sandra Ingerman and Llyn Roberts, two shamanic teachers that I greatly admire. Sandra wrote a chapter called "Earth" where she talks about what's happening to the Earth in terms of global climate change and natural disasters, and she said that we've become so disconnected from our place in nature (also we've forgotten that we ARE nature) that we don't realize that the planet will survive and Earth is doing what it needs to do to survive - but will we survive? Will we continue to make choices that destroy our species? Civilizations have risen and fallen throughout the centuries, but the Earth is still here. (She also has some interesting things to say about people who fall for conspiracy theories, but that's for another blog or maybe a song or two if I can motivate myself to write.)

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On that note, I'm excited that tomorrow morning starts a 6-week online nature writing course that I signed up for a few weeks ago. I originally took the course in 2022, but I was definitely not in a good headspace back then, and now, thanks to the magic of the plant medicine from the herbalist I've been working with, I feel like I'm going to get a lot more out of it. 

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My best friends from middle school may come up for a visit at some point this week if they can swing it, and I'm thinking a lot about how much has changed since I last saw them. That was almost 10 years ago, and since then I've gained 50+ lbs, lost my ability to drive, lost all my upper teeth, and lost a lot of hair. I sometimes feel as if I've become too feral to re-enter society or hold down a job anymore, and I wonder how it's going to be if I see them this week. My life for the last 4+ years has been this kind of twisted Groundhog Day, a complete blur of comfort shows and doctor's appointments and days and nights all blending together in a sheet of anxiety over my brain. 

Sometimes I feel as if I've become too radicalized, too feral, to ever return to "society" or "the outside world". How do I reconcile the internal changes of the last 4+ years when I feel like an alien in the grocery store? I know I can't go back, but moving forward has been a slow and laborious process. The last few years have broken me down, but maybe they haven't broken me yet. 

I'm asking more questions now like, Who controls the world behind the scenes? Who decided to make just being alive to fucking expensive? Why do we continue to do things that we KNOW are bad for the planet? Why do we continue to do things that we know don't work and are actually harmful for humans? Why haven't we all just had a full-on fucking meltdown and gone on strike until things change? All the questions I asked when I was in my early 20s and trying to work full time and take on college (because I was told that I would never get anywhere without a college degree and mounds of debt, and of course I'd be able to find a good job with a college degree that would allow me to pay off that debt, but yeah, we all know how that worked out.) 

Anyway...

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In a few minutes here after I finish this, I'm going to go clean up my kitchen and start the dishwasher and maybe pop a loaf of fresh bread into the oven for lunch, get some more wood for the wood stove to try and warm myself up, and take my doggo for a quick walk outside to talk to some trees. I'm grateful for every day I have lately, and I'm offering my gratitude as a song to the trees on our property and in the backyard. 

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And last but not least, in ukulele-related news, the 100 Days of Ukulele Challenge for 2024 starts on March 1, and this year, I'm gonna do it. Which means I have to get over my fear of appearing on camera in a video, and I have to stop listening to the voices of my inner critic (and some of my outer critics) and just dothething. But that's for another post for tomorrow.