hard times
I have to find a way to balance our troubled world with my own optimism, joy and obligations.
Patti Smith
The pandemic and the brutal war in the Ukraine have thrown us off track. Life has become expensive. In America, some madman mows down innocent people at least once a week. Women around the world are the targets of male violence, underreported cases the rule. Excess mortality everywhere, especially in battered nature. Not that everything was better before; we know what ails and offends us and have fewer illusions about who we are and what we are capable of.
Christmas is just around the corner, despite everything a reason to rejoice. Our family decided a few years ago that we only give presents to the children. I do not adhere to it: the adults are my children too, as are their partners, by proxy.
As for gifts, since the verdict against the adults, I rely on natural produce. For my grandson, who has a talent for pottery, I asked the potter down the street if he can spend an afternoon with her, and if she’ll fire his creations for him. One third of the family is abroad this year. I had my gifts delivered there – unfortunately not in kind, but something for the entire stirp. I’m still looking for gifts for a teenage girl and for a young woman. Anyone can just buy stuff.
I am grateful that we are healthy, that we love each other (with occasional exceptions) and that we may enjoy the celebration of the returning light in peace and safety this year too.
Remembering people who are not as fortunate as we are, is just as much a part of our Christmas as a hopefully successful big meal (I am the cook this year) and, most of all, the joy of being together.
Restoratively Yours
Susanne G. Seiler
P.S. You’ll find us at the Gaia Lounge, Hochstrasse 70 in Basel (near Basel SBB main station, tram stop Peter Merian) every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!
lost in the forest
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.
Pablo Neruda