This sure is a time! Wherever you are, you are certainly in a different place than you were just a few short weeks ago. How are you spending these days? Are you hole-ing up or WHOLE-ing up? The choice is yours...



I’m not Pollyanna, but I believe there are more silver linings than there are clouds. So I’ve come up with the 5 Cs of Covid-19, each one its own silver lining:

1) COMMUNICATION
Now is such a great time to reach out and get in touch with people with whom you might have lost touch - old camp friends, relatives, neighbors. We are all feeling isolated, but we don’t have to be.

Have you noticed how amazing is it that we have the technology right now to SEE each other through our phones and computer screens? For example, I attended a virtual birthday party the other day…and my book group had our regular meeting on Zoom. My husband Patrick and I join a Facebook Live meditation every day…along with thousands of other people from all over the world! We are more connected than ever. 

And honestly, if it weren’t for FaceTime, I would be SO worried about my 92-year-old mom who has been confined to her small apartment in a senior residence for the past 3 weeks. It’s great to SEE her everyday. I’ve even taken her on an evening walk with Patrick and our cat Toesy who likes to walk around the block with us. (We call him our “puppy-cat”.) Mom felt so refreshed afterwards, like she’d explored our neighborhood too!
And it’s an even better time to get in touch with yourself…which leads me to the next C…

2) CONTEMPLATION

Who are you when you’re not busy DO-ing. How do you BE?

We are so identified with what we DO, this pause in our lives might feel awkward. Be-ing isn’t easy, especially in a society that seems to only value do-ing. But its rewards are enormous. Clarity. Calm. Equanimity. Ease. Balance. Inner peace. Sound good? It is. And there are many ways to “practice” being - meditation, yoga, tai chi, doodling, soaking in a warm tub, sitting in the garden, listening to music, cloud gazing, rubbing your dog’s belly, cooking a meal with love, spending quality time with YOU. Any or all of these ways, and many more possibilities beckon. 

If you’ve ever thought about meditation, this is the perfect time to learn. When you go within, it doesn’t matter what is happening without.

So go inside…see who’s in there, waiting for this opportunity to delight you… You might find an artist just waiting for a piece of blank paper. Yes, the next C is…

3) CREATIVITY

Have you noticed how Covid-19 has opened up endless ways to be creative? I have never seen funnier, more clever, more thoughtful expressions of the human spirit. 

I first became aware of the amazing unlimited variety of creative expression at an art festival at a gourd farm. Yes, you heard that right…a farm that only grows gourds. Fat ones, skinny ones, flat ones, tall ones…hundreds of shapes and sizes. 

Gourd artists flocked to this festival to buy supplies and show their art. I was amazed at how each artist approached the gourd - some used its shape to dictate the piece, like a gourd with a long neck became a swan. Others imposed their art onto the gourd with painting, scraping or adorning it. Still others carved the space around their picture so that the negative space became the art. 

And so it is with us. We can each approach these long days at home with fresh ideas on how to fill them.

When we make the shift from fear to just noticing that in this moment, we’re fine…we get to actually experience this moment instead of giving it away thinking about something we are worried about. 

I know, I know…not so easy these days where the drumbeat of fear is louder than our own beating hearts… For me, I have to come back to the moment a million times a day right now. If it isn’t MY fear, I am also tapping into the collective fear. Aren’t we all…

But how’s this for a shift of perspective? Instead of thinking of it at “stuck at home,” think of it as “safe at home.” What a difference a word makes… This way, we are taking CARE of ourselves and others instead of resenting sheltering in place. Yup. The next C is…

4) CARE

How are you caring for yourself during this time? There are SO many ways to do that! I’m just going to touch on a few…
Can you use this dramatic pause to take a closer look at what you now have time to change in your life? What habits no longer serve you? What have you been wanting to do but didn’t have time to get started? Are you noticing your relationships are shifting? What about your relationship with you??

Are you using the healing power of nature every day? If you can get outside, enjoy the air, the sky, the birds… And even if you can’t leave your quarantine even for a walk, there are wonderful virtual tours online of just about everything including the National Parks. I even saw a virtual tour of Ireland…it’s the next best thing to being there…

And there are hundreds of books to download, Broadway shows to enjoy, films from the Library of Congress to watch, yoga classes, art projects, dance tracks… I don’t know about you, but these days are going SO FAST with all there is to do!

See if you can take time every day to look at all the positives coming out of this period - kindness is even more contagious than the virus if you give it freely and often. There are SO many tiny moments - a smile behind a mask, a chalk drawing on the sidewalk, families walking together with or without a dog…

We are all in this together. Which leads me to the last C…

5) COMPASSION

What a perfect time this is to connect to your heart and breathe into its nourishment. Take it in…let it grow…and share the deepening with everyone you see/email/FaceTime/text/think about. We ARE all Connected. So now you can decide whether you are “hole-ing up”…or “whole-ing up?” The Choice is ours about whether to be in fear or in love. I’m sure you know by now that I choose Love. And I suspect you do too…

“Love is the freedom, Love is the way
Love is a choice that we make every day
Love is the answer to every fear
Love is the reason we’re here…Love is the reason we’re here…”

Click here to Listen: https://tinyurl.com/qlhkh4l

Click here to celebrate our beautiful planet with a video and song "Love Mother Earth": https://youtu.be/c1SHqOlsLfs

And above all, take care of you...