
Lying low in Splendid Isolation
“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”~John O’Donohue
“Hiding is a way of staying alive… One of the brilliant & virtuoso practices of almost every part of the natural world. Hiding, done properly is the internal faithful promise for a future emergence.”
~David Whyte from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and meaning of everyday words. (I was reminded of this snippet via the lovely Tanya Shadrick who’s work you should read as well.)
Here we are.
Our worries so collectively numerous as to be overflowing. Amidst all this corona-consumed madness it is difficult to sort out the complicated feelings we are all experiencing as we navigate an unprecedented global crisis. I find it hard to believe that just a week ago I was newly home from a few weeks away in a land blessed with color and volcanic breezes. I’ll admit I am a bit homesick for lovely Guatemala.
Now I am on lockdown here at home.
This is not out of fear for my own safety, but rather a trust in those who study the paths pathogens take, and knowing that to hide away for a few weeks, or more, is to be a good citizen of the world. I worry for my older relatives and friends and hope they keep to their promises to lie low. This too shall pass, yes?
An old friend and co-worker of mine, who’s name I won’t mention here, is treating this time of crisis with online mockery. He is, thankfully, one of just a few. I know his mocking stems from fear. Fear of losing his income with gigs drying up. I remember when he was tenderly tending his ailing father many years ago, and I wonder, would he have mocked if this crisis occurred then? I do not know. I try not to judge. I really try. Those he mocks are panic buying all the essentials – yet another behavior borne of fear.
Fear and anxiety are so thick in the world just now one can almost smell it.
As a country and as a world community, we are being asked to come together (or rather more truthfully, to stay apart) for the good of those most vulnerable among us, and to allow the hospitals to do what they can with the inevitable scenario as it plays out. It’s been generations since this level of selflessness was asked of us all – especially of Americans. Our overriding culture is not one which rewards selflessness, or slowness, or quietude but these are the very things necessary at this crucial time in history. As I write that though, I am also struck thinking about all of the beautiful offerings I have seen online from people reaching out to one another to give assistance in some way or other. Propping each other up with offers to pick up groceries for an elderly neighbor, offers to help with child care, calls to be kind to those manning the shops and stores still open with necessities. And I think, perhaps our WWII era ancestors might be proud of us after all.
What would the twitter feed look like back in WWII??? I wonder……
One can almost hear a shifting of universal paradigms. This morning I went outside with the dog and a cup of coffee. Sunday mornings are often comparatively quiet, but this hush was exceptional. The occasional car went past on the local highway which usually sounds like an angry seashore. Birdsong was raucous and beautiful. A sign of spring, yes, but also a sign of the human world having hit the pause button for now. It’s eerie and beautiful, this quiet. It’s a quiet I have been craving my entire life. I find it sad that it has to be a crisis of this level which brings about such a wished-for hush. But I’ll take it.


A sad time of year for the world’s social calendar to get canceled. As you may have guessed, St. Patrick’s Day will be a quiet one this year.
In the coming days, weeks (and who knows? maybe months) we are all adjusting to this slowing down. Yesterday my hub and daughter spent the day painting with Bob Ross. They chose a “calm” painting video of his and got to work.
I too did a bit of painting myself……
….. in a little book I obtained in Antigua and which I covered with a beautiful textile “scrap”.
I painted abstractly from photos I have of the ruins……
I wonder about the state of the world and feel that we find ourselves in a new and unexpected era. I wonder what we will learn from it, if anything.
With St. Patrick’s Day essentially canceled, many of us are woodshedding tunes we hope to learn. I like to call these “quarantunes.” One is called Splendid Isolation, which is apt.
And another couple of tunes….. (I about have the first but still working on the second. And oh, June, your tone. What is your secret?????)
Sometimes during times of strife, I turn to the music and remember that many of the old-fashioned Irish tunes were composed and shared in times of great turmoil and sadness. During mass emigration and scattering of loved ones, during times of brutal occupation and ensuing troubles. I am reminded that we can get through this, together and will once again rollick as one.
We are all just doing the best we can just now, and this is crucial to remember. We must go gently. Those unaccustomed to staying at home with little to do might feel a bit stir crazy in coming weeks. Those unaccustomed to the constant undertow and thrum of anxiety will have some adjusting to do. This gives me a chuckle as an anxiety-prone introverted wanderer and I think, ‘finally, a scenario I was built for!’
There is a lot of pressure via the online world to turn this time of quarantine into a hub of productivity. There are posts about Newton and his genius calculus figuring. And Shakespeare and his writing of King Lear in the time of the Plague. While I do plan to paint and play music, these are things I do anyway in my day to day. I reject this notion that we must produce in order to have value somehow. Let us give in a bit to boredom. To not doing all the time. This slowing down to think and feel on a deep level may be the greatest thing that comes out of these dark days.
Like many, I am nervous about the future. Besides my day job at the concertina shop (and thank the gods for it!!) Nearly ALL of my paying work comes from my travel journaling workshops. We got Guatemala done and dusted just as the virus was beginning to really affect travel plans and the psyches of my participants. I have canceled my yearly spring trip to do the 2-day workshop in California. Perhaps things will have come back to some level of normalcy by June and Taos will go off without a hitch. But I do not know and I am steeling myself for all possible scenarios. As we all must do in uncertain times.
As we move forward in the coming days, let us merely be gentle. Gentle with ourselves and kind toward one another. Most people acting badly are doing so out of fear. I believe it was fear that elected our current president (and will ye look where that’s gotten us?!). May we feel our own fear and honor it while at the same time not acting from that place of fear, but rather from a place of love and tenderness for one another. Keep reaching out online, keep digging in those gardens if you can (dirt is good for the immune system!), keep playing and creating if you feel like it. Allow yourself to just shut down too if you feel the need to. It will all be ok. Somehow.
That’s Gort Na Móna/Tir Rafartaigh from Michael and June’s album Draíocht, yes? Great stuff.
YES!!! My harp player friend is learning and I hope to play along with her! What a set, eh? June’s tone is just wow.
At least we have each other to get through this. I am thankful for the down time. Peace and health by yours Amy.
I’m thankful for the privilege of being able to be thankful for down time. Not every can. Holding everyone and everything in light. Hope to see you all soon once this storm has abated.