So already I haven't blogged every day of September - but that's okay, and a simple statement, not a hand-wringing tale of failure. Which those who know me well will understand as real progress.
TW violence.
Today, the third day of spring, has been a perfect blue sky day. These are the days when my early morning walk to feed the chooks and ducks is a delight: violets in the grass, pink peach blossom, white plum blossom. Lately it's been a chore, venturing out in wind and cold rain, plodding through mud, today was a welcome change.
The SAD has kept me lacking in motivation, and I realized that I have once again neglected the garden preparation necessary to get my summer garden planted. Not only that, but I haven't started seeds either. So I have ordered a 'vegcombo' pack of 72 seedlings of unknown varieties, which should arrive early next week, thus forcing me to get out and get weeding.
So it was that I spent several hours outside in the sunshine without sunscreen because it's been so long since I last needed it and am now the possessor of a fine pink complexion. Why don't I get out there more often? Gardening always makes me feel good, yet I resist it. The smell of freshly turned soil, the working hard and sweating with the effort, hands in the earth, surrounded by bird song, including the challenges of male pheasants declaring their ownership of their particular territories.
Lunch was satisfying too: homemade bread roll with home grown bean and seed sprouts and egg from my own chooks mashed with onion weed freshly foraged from halfway down our (600m) driveway.
It was encouraging to listen to the daily announcement of cases of covid in the community and hear that the numbers seem to be reducing.
Back out in the garden, I listened to Jessie Mulligan on National Radio talking to Lynda Hallinan about attracting bees to your garden until the programme was interrupted by a news flash.
A man had been shot dead by police after attacking people at a supermarket.
At 5.15pm the prime minister and the chief of police held a news conference where we learned that the man was a Sri Lankan who came to New Zealand 10 years ago, has been under surveillance since 2016 because of his extreme ISIS views, but has never done anything to warrant arrest. The police watching him had no reason to think this was anything other than another supermarket shop by the man who had shopped there before, but he obtained a knife within the store and started stabbing people. He was shot by the police within 60 seconds of the start of his attack.
Suddenly the black dog is back, snapping at my heels again. I feel helpless, despairing and sick to the core at this world of fires and floods and storms and violence and disease and hatred and covid and conspiracy theories, and at this heartless earth which just keeps on being beautiful and glorious without a moment's consideration of me or the rest of humankind.
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I love that grandmother earth is always there for us. Ready to absorb our stress and anxiety and mulch it into goodness. Nature has been such medicine the last 2 years for me.
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