Storms raged during the night, to the point it was impossible to sleep, being a sound sleeper I once slept through a hurricane, but the flashes of lightening and the roar of thunder last night made it impossible. The first burst lasted nearly an hour and just kept sitting right above us, the extreme noise of rain lashing on the balcony was something I haven’t encountered before in this apartment, even though we have heavy rain with flooding most years. We needed this, it has been brewing for a month and although the atmosphere today is oppressive, it kind of feels fresher from the last months heaviness.
In contrast yesterday we had some spells of sunshine poking through the clouds and it was a little milder than recent weeks. My son came home yesterday and told me he had been out of the town to make a delivery for work, by out of the town I mean 5 minutes as there is no traffic. He reported that it felt like he had entered a different world! Neighbours were all sat outside in their gardens and a few gathered for a BBQ with no masks, no gloves etc. It brought home to me that we are each living a different reality during this global lock down, sometime in the future we will all look back and have a different view or perspective on what it meant to be Isolated. Of course I have friends who live in town houses or villas in local urbanisations, I envisioned they would be outside when possible in the garden but actually hadn’t envisioned how social they would be. In my mind Isolation means Isolation, we are fined if caught near another person chatting in the towns. My perception of everybody having this time in Isolation to go deep within, obviously doesn’t apply to everyone, as people were seen eating, drinking and gathering at a distance together. The longer I have had no social contact, the deeper I have gone inside, this may not have happened if I had been able to get outside and socialise, even at a distance. This goes for most of life I guess, we each live in a different reality which leads to misunderstandings of each other, it is not that one is right and the other is wrong its just that our experiences are different. Maybe our communications in the future should include “what was or is your experience on this subject” before we judge each other, in this way all levels of society will be better served if we have a balanced view from all sides of an experience and perception and less judgment.
I have decided to include more little news snippets daily, as a reminder in the future of how things progressed or what went on during these times, it will be interesting to see in future years if any of the things came to pass or turned out to be true. So today I start with:
Whilst in lock down the USA has passed a bill opening the way for the mining of the moon without any sort of international treaty. It states “Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space,” the US didn’t sign a 1979 agreement (the moon treaty) which stipulates any activities in space should conform to international law. Also in 2015 US Congress passed a law allowing American companies to use resources from the moon and asteroids. This new Executive Order states the US will object to any attempt to use international law to hinder its efforts to remove chunks of the moon or additional mining of Mars and “other celestial bodies” and that the federal government will “require partnership with commercial entities to recover and use resources, including water and certain minerals, in outer space”. At the same time Trump has opened up vast tracts of federal land for oil and gas drilling, rolling back many environmental laws that were in place.
Do we really think that opening up mining in space wont effect the natural balance of life? New pathogens brought to earth, and earths pathogens taken to planets (see yesterdays blog). To me it seems like children playing in a science lab without the teacher present, mixing different chemicals to see what happens, except in this case it may not have an immediate reaction and blow up or create noxious gasses but may take years before the consequences may be seen. Their assumption could be that no harm will come of it, or if it does they can make more profits creating a remedy! It cant be a scientifically based on, every action has a consequence, as science has much to learn and still doesn’t know for sure whether a virus is a form of life, or organic structures that interact with living organism!
In other news, a study points to evidence of stray dogs as the possible origin of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, this feels a little confusing as recently it was reported after tigers were found in zoos to have the virus, that Felines and Ferrets were susceptible to the virus but not Canines. The study though is referring to possible origin for the mutations to jump to humans, it states “genomes from canine coronaviruses (CCoVs), which had caused a highly contagious intestinal disease worldwide in dogs, have genomic CpG values similar to those observed in SARS-CoV-2”
In possible good news: 30 years ago a strange “sediment organism” was found that could do things nobody had ever seen before in bacteria, this microbe, could produce magnetite in the absence of oxygen. With time scientists found it could make other things too, like bacterial nanowires that conduct electricity. A new device called the Air-gen has been built, “We are literally making electricity out of thin air,” said electrical engineer Jun Yao from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “The Air-gen generates clean energy 24/7.” This could be good news for a cleaner future, one which we all long for, the only worry that crept in reading the report was “genetically engineering other bugs, like E Coli to perform the same trick in massive supplies”. Of course I know nothing about science so it may just be paranoia, talking of playing around with bugs and viruses during these times! So lets hope this moves forward.
Well that is all for today, I am off for some TLC, being tired from lack of sleep and my growing old pains are in full flow today. I have played around with Macramé especially this last Christmas making presents, so I was fascinated to see the picture below, it is so beautiful what the creative mind can do, and it can be healing. I hope you stay safe and take precautions to protect yourself and loved ones including taking care of your mental health 💜
Looking out after the Heavy Storms 
Work of Agnes Hansella. Instagram handle is @macrame_id***
Growing Old 