health and welfare

by

Pandemic Bliss

Hail Brave hearts

Joy to you, with this awful isolation. Joy to you, to overcome perils. The hardship of disease brings a new life of solitude and self exploration. Change and be healthy. All obstacles can be overcome. This is a time to refresh, rejuvenate, recharge and become new. Take advantage of this crisis and the gift that it gives us, we may never pass this way again.

Look forward to those long days of learning a new skill, or to improve the old ones. The time that it takes to reinvent and refurbish a dowdy room or area. Plant a new garden, try new seeds, adventure into the known by unexplored worlds outside your doorstep. A chance to be a tourist in your own country. Those old familiar trails, which should be vacant, are full of Canadians travelling. We climb a familiar scramble to a peak just outside of town. Usually this one is lightly travelled, since it’s somewhat obscure, but today it’s full of people. The parking lot is full, the trail is full. It’s unusual to see this.

The earnest quest for adventure takes us to new destinations annually.  We strive to fulfill the ambition of discovery, of learning, of knowledge of this world and the fabulous fortune that it holds for us.  The fortune of personal development, of personal achievement, of conquering new lands by tourism, adventure, eco tourism and insightful gain.  The path to follow is new to each of us.  A daring land of plenty to explore just outside out borders.  The world is full of wonder and grateful hearts eagerly plundered the wilds of this planet, always seeking more.  Our human endevour is to know it all.  Each step on an unknown path is the thrill and excitement of discovery.  So many kilometers to travel, so many peaks to climb, the essential fun filled holiday is a yearly dream come true.

Now to the reality of disease and pandemic perish.  Open your parks and swing on the swings, stay home and build new dreams.  The fortunate can venture into the wilds of Canadian parks and enjoy the stimulation of an adventure in this awesome land.  So many kilometers to travel, so many paths to walk.  The never ending landscape of discovery in this fine land, became the national dream of Canadian holiday seekers this year.  Back to action packed fun, wherever it may be.  What is new to us is old to us, but new again.  Every square kilometer travelled?  Oh such awesome human to have done so much.  So much time to explore, so much money to spend, so much curiosity and initiative.  It’s immense.  It’s WOW!  What a fortune to spend.  Especially in other lands.  

Work and work and work, you mighty relentless souls.  Build your estates, compound it annually and spend and spend and spend it all, frolicking around the world.  Have a good time, enjoy yourselves, squander it all away.  Until this mighty pandemic hit, now it’s a Canadian holiday you say?  We’ll buy ourselves a trailer now and pay the camping fees and praise ourselves immensely for surviving the disease.

As we open up this country with caution to continue to  wear our masks, we breath for the days of flu season and to put the pandemic in our past.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

September 2, 2020

by

Are We Cursed?

Hail Brave hearts

It’s quiet.  The days are long and the sounds are different.  Less traffic, less chatter, fewer people.  The night is quiet.  No street noise late at night.  More rest and relaxation, more time for self reflection and self interest.  An unusual change in reality.  The business of our lives has vanished, to be replaced with long days of self isolation and social distancing.  Communication skills and life skills have changed.  We vanish into the isolation of family.

Business winds down and phone lines are still.  The rush of commercialism has changed from endless shopping to buying masks.  Social skills have become social distancing.  The latest craze is hand sanitizer. We will learn to be clean, cleaner than we’ve ever been, by simply washing our hands.  Don’t touch your face. Wear a mask.

This new dilemma is an outstanding challenge of perseverance.  We win this.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

We win this for ourselves and for the lifestyles that we covet.  We win this for our families whose affection we cherish.  We win this, as if we are fighting a war.  It’s a virus, but it’s a substantial foe.  An odd set of circumstances bring us to this awful place, our lust to see new worlds.  The insatiable curiosity of other lands, other peoples, other worlds to travel to.  A holiday, a honeymoon, a business trip, a cultural exchange, all tourism, and the fine mechanism of money.

Bring me riches, bring me gold, bring me markets, bring me wealth.  Be it imperialistic plunder, or grass roots peasantry, bring me humans by the score.  The tourist dollars go round and round, round and round, round and round, all through the town.

An unprecedented disaster occurs which brings a dreadful halt to our wealth building module.  No tourists, no money.  No money, no gain.  So much of our time and energy has been absorbed in tourism, that now, the problem arises, how do we return the wheels of fortune?  What is our plan B?  With this economic strategy falling, what brilliance will replace it?  What dollars and sense will catapult us to economic recovery?

Slowly we return to the normal world of prosperity.  Build it, oh financial geniuses, build it with magic and wizardry.   Paint the pallet black, so that the recovery is complete, oh you awesome doctors of mathematics.

Meanwhile, what we can enjoy from this pandemic, since it befalls us, is the quiet solitude of our new found wealth.  Time.  Time to be home with recipes to try, with exercise class, online courses, email, documentaries, online business, social media. Time to indulge in a hobby, a new lifestyle, a project.  Time to change and to be new.  Time to rejuvenate and to emerge from the cocoon  as a butterfly.

The recovery strategy is markets, be it foreign or domestic, but business has always been the money wheel.  There are always other strategies.  The strategy of self help and learning, of exploration within Canada, of athletics and education.  A different wealth is offered.  A wealth of time, of restriction, of poverty.  The wealth that demands that people stay home, enjoy their own place, discover their own good fortune of the new, the unusual, the uniqueness of their own land.  This is a new age of discovery, of being the tourist in your own homeland.  This is the restriction of no money, when we can’t afford international travel.  Save us!  Save us from the devil that calls this a sin.  Save us from the mind that abhors it.  The self indulgent traveler who knows their own homeland, like the maps, the parks, the novels that are written for it.  Sing to us, oh great traveler, who recognizes those place names  and can check them off their bucket list.  The growing names of unknown places, waiting for a visit.

Joy to us, for the pleasure of this compromise.  No international travel, stay home and enjoy your place.   Joy to us, for this restriction of our poverty.  It is with great pride, that we present to ourselves, our own great nation.

Our travels become close at hand, perhaps only within the province.  Lucky are we, for this gigantic misfortune.  We have it to ourselves.  All of this beauty and magnificence, that we show off to the world, is just for us right now.

It’s for us, you awesome human.  This oasis in the universe is for us.

Written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 7, 2020