With COVID, our focus is directed inward. We can be with family, care for our home like never before; be very, very careful, practice a skill, explore the internet and read. Its as wide as your imagination.

I am continuously reading something. This year, during our family’s 43rd annual camping trip, I was reading, The Spell of the Sensuous, Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, by David Abram.

I understood, quite some time ago, how we are one with the world and the Universe.

This book describes how to be far more connected to Nature and every living thing in it. In his words, our eyes and the texture of our skin takes-in the nuances of the shifting wind and the nourishment of a rambling brook.

He goes on to suggest that we got the word, “rambling” from the nature of the brook itself. That we got the word, “wow” and “bang” from lightning and thunder. And that we operate at this sensitivity level.

Calling ourselves emotional has been a stifling label. We can set ourselves free from it. We are naturally sensitive, just as are the birds and the butterflies are sensitive. We get our sense of flying from all of nature traveling by flight.

David Abram, a summa cum laude graduate at Wesleyan University, he holds a doctorate in philosophy from State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Watson and Rockefeller Foundations and has a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.

He has traded sensory information with indigenous people in Indonesia, Nepal, and the Americas. As an ecologist and a philosopher, his writing has influenced the environmental movement in North America and abroad.

This is his first book. Its lyrical, poetic, and intellectually embracing. It startles our senses out of habitual ways of seeing and hearing for a wider, fuller engagement with Nature.

He traces the steps of Rene Descartes, from the 17th Century; followed by Edmund Husserl in the early 20th Century, followed by Merleau-Ponty in more recent times. They all developed the idea that our earth is animated with life that flows to us and from us.

We are communicating with it and it is communicating with us. It’s a rich exchange.

Amazon has The Spell of the Sensuous. It is published through Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House, New York.

Soon I will release, on YouTube, information that will soothe our passive and not-so-passive fear/frustration over COVID-19 and life in general.

Who am I to suggest alternatives? I am an artist who has acted like a dressmaker for 35 years and now helps people to use their imagination to solve day-to-day problems. I have been described as having incredible persistence and stamina for creating my own life.

Enough.

I want to know about you.

I can imagine how different life is during these 15, maybe 10 days of isolation. That’s our part of helping to get the Coronavirus under control. But, it seems like it may continue to be around, changing our lives with it.

I say, terrific!

Let’s dream; as Gregory Porter says in his song, Painted On Canvas.

We are like children, we're painted on canvas

Can I use the colors I choose

Do I have a say what colors you use?

Can I get some green and some blue?

What do you use?

You have powers you just barely use to full advantage. Personal powers to create reality for yourself. Dream, change and refine the dream and then, focus your thoughts over time. Depending on your ability to focus your thoughts, you will see reality change to match your dream. You have absolute control over your own thoughts.

We are like children, we're painted on canvas

Admire the view

Thank you, Gregory Porter

Focus on your relationships, even though the physical element is not allowed. Talk a lot online, by phone and text so when the restrictions are lifted, our sense-of-self and the quality of our relationships have risen to a higher level. Right now, when you can safely meet, do it outdoors and do not touch. Laugh, smile, talk and dance in your home even if you are by yourself. Get yourself out-of-doors and relate to the element that resonates with you. The simple elements are air, wood, water, fire, metal. Breathe deep and fully.

Talk about the coronavirus with friends and family until it’s talked through. Don’t argue with the restrictions, they are designed to reduce the spread of the virus. Use common sense and good hygiene. Be there for one another. In this case it’s most important to honor the other person’s principles and maintain your own principles. In other words, stick to your agency and honor the agency of your family and friends.

In a few months the Coronavirus will be more understandable. Even though it’s a time-laden process, it is temporary in the larger scheme of things. This is unique time, where we need to communicate our desires, wants and needs clearly in everyday moments. Be one of those people who makes such a good impact on people’s lives, they are calmed and centered by you and can barely remember life before this time.