Someday When

In an email exchange last evening my dear friend who had asked me about any preference for a Presidential candidate wrote,

Your response to my question was most intriguing. You changed your answer from the person to their traits. Yes, I agreed with everything you wrote about the essences of both men, how those essences connect to us, and your wish that whomever wins would live and lead from those traits and from that true essence. To quote the lyrics from a song, “What a wonderful world that would be.” If only….

John sings a song titled “Some Day When Things Are Good” by Merle Haggard.

Someday when things are good
I’m gonna leave you
I can’t seem to go
When things are bad

For the past 7 months, I have done yoga daily. Kathy Zerler and I started our daily practice the morning after Michigan was mandated to “stay safe at home.” Kathy has inched her way into technology, and since late April we have been recording daily practices using the Zoom platform and sharing those on YouTube. (Just search: Kathy Zerler Youtube.)

Today, Kathy is starting back teaching in person restorative yoga classes at the YMCA. Eight foot squares have been taped on the gym floor, everyone is required to wear a mask, temperatures will be checked upon entry, and a list of all participants generated for contact tracing, if the need should arise for that. It would be dishonest to say I don’t have concern as the COVID-19 numbers are spiking.

This morning Kathy opened our Zoom practice with a reading from The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane: A Novel, by Lisa See. It is a powerful story about a family, separated by circumstances, culture, and distance. Kathy started class by reading a section about the virtues of drinking tea.

I was telling John yesterday morning that it was about 50 years ago when I did a term paper on this shift away from valuing character traits (Honest Abe). I well remember the research — some related to the “God is Dead” movement that occurred when the United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. From that horror, for the first time in history, we perceived that humans really could destroy life on earth.

That jarring awareness of what humans did to humans in Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused a shift of our collective psyche from a longer-term view to preferring shorter-term relief, ushering in the devastating era of “the end justifies the means” living. We collectively became short-sighted and pleasure-seeking. Hence fast-food and drive-through banking, and a divorce rate in the US of 40 to 50 percent. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher.

Kathy read, “Just the physical process we experience when we drink tea — our search for huigan — causes us to turn inward and reflect as the liquor coats our tongues, shimmers down our throats, and then rises again as fragrance.”

Huigan is the pleasant aftertaste of tea, literally meaning “Returning Sweet.”

Humanity is at a turning point. We can see the bigger picture. We can co-create the world we dream….

Kathy continued reading, “Buddhists grant tea the highest spiritual qualities, ranking it among the four ways to concentrate the mind, along with walking, feeding fish, and sitting quietly….Together, these three disciplines have taught us to look upward to see the state of the heavens and downward to observe the natural arrangement of the earth. But whatever you believe or however you view life, the quality and goodness of a tea are for the mouth to decide.”

Ah, those days: days leading up to the election, days as we navigate a global pandemic. Days that cause us to turn inward and reflect. Perfect days to drink tea!

This short video is from Remembering Wholeness, October 25, 2020. Aaron, channeled by Barbara Brodsky:

If you are unable to view the video, here is the transcript:

To know that we’re co-creating this — all of us — not just us, but the people who might wish a different person to be elected. But, not holding who will win so much as the world we really want to envision: a world of love, of respect, of support for all beings.

May the candidate that can best help that to happen win this election. That, rather than, “I want my candidate to win.”

The one who can best support a healthy environment, an end to the pandemic, financial well-being, adequate food and home, respect, lovingkindness….

May the candidate who can best support this win this election. And then may that support flow from all of us to create the world we envision. Thank you.

~ Aaron, channeled by Barbara Brodsky at Remembering Wholeness, October 25, 2020