Sylvia's Journal

This morning we held our usual Music & Imagery session. We meditate and go ‘inside,’ then return with whatever we found there and commit it to paper. Although the technique is used in therapy (by the ones who lead the sessions) for us it’s not a therapy session but rather like a folk dance with a group of women (some in Quebec and others in Massachusetts) who have become very special to each other. 

We share our experiences of the world as it is. Today it was a rather depressing conversation. About Ukraine of course, but also the pandemic and the ones that come after, and then I throw antimicrobial resistance on the fire and whoosh, we’re all depressed. And there is more, that article in the New Yorker about destitute Afghan women sitting in the middle of the road in wintry Kabul, babies clenched to their chest… It’s too much to bear. All day long I walked around with a large brick in my stomach (or lungs) that got in the way of breathing. And then I recognize and marvel at my luck and privilege.

One of the things that led to my depressed state yesterday was listening to an interview of our friend Jerry Martin about the link between meat and pandemics. I told Jerry that he managed to get to simplicity on the other side of complexity, rather than simplicity on this side of complexity. The message is very disturbing although it had one high note at the end. He reminded us that we were not totally unprepared for the pandemic: it was after the 2005 avian flu pandemic that researchers started to work on MNRA vaccines which has allowed many more people to survive COVID-19.