“Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.”
―
During this pandemic my family has retreated for wellness in the comfort of our home. Some call it sheltering, quarantine, or isolation, I would rather call it a retreat. I have two sons between the ages of 18 and 20 and my husband and I are enjoying the time as a family. We do more together than we normally do as life is no longer calling us in the usual way. The pressures and pulls to go in many different directions simply disappeared overnight.
My husband and I are blessed to be able to continue work and we are now working from home. I looked online for some advice for retreating and found many blogs and articles from people in Europe who had already, and still are, living through this unique situation. Routine was what I read over and over again. I have a tendency to hang out in my pj’s until noon when I’m off work. The first thing I did was get dressed every day. I also dress in nice clothes – not the rags I wear to do my housework. It’s ironic how these subtle routines can make you feel alive and part of humanity.
Our house has become our command centre and I have arranged it to meet everyone’s needs. I am a Master Reiki practitioner, so I already have a room that is dedicated to Reiki sessions for clients. It was easy enough for me to create an office for my work as an office manager. Our kitchen and family room was split into two work spaces to create the space for my husband and son. My husband works with Autistic students and my son’s trade school is now on-line. It’s easy for work time to merge into home time so I make sure that all work related or school materials are put away and neatly stacked so that visually our minds take us away from work and into the evening or the weekend.
We’ve always been fans of watching movies from home and I’m enjoying watching movies as a family. Last night we watched “Call of the Wild” for the first time. I have read the reviews on the movie and there was a lot of criticism about how unnatural Buck and the animals look. It is true that you could certainly see the digital images and the influence of that technology throughout the movie, but what movie in this day and age doesn’t use technology as a background to the film. Personally, I loved the movie, and I loved the message. Jack London’s message was fairly simple when he wrote “Call of the Wild” in 1903. It called for respect and love to our environment and to treat animals with love, compassion and dignity. In doing so our environment will flourish and in treating animals with respect and love they grow in strength, confidence and resilience.
In this new world of living under the pandemic, I couldn’t help but see the parallel lines between the movie and the chaos the world is living under right now. Buck was thrown into utter chaos overnight and it was within this chaos that evil surfaced. Buck had been living a great life with an upper class family enjoying the fruits of that life and his behaviour was defiant, stubborn, unruly, immature and uncontrollable. He simply could not help himself. He found himself scared and alone with no idea what his future held as the cargo ship, his dognappers forced him on, sailed to the Great Canadian North. In a way all of us have been unruly and we’ve taken for granted the comforts which we live. There are so many who are poor and marginalized and we choose to ignore this fact or satisfy ourselves with the attitude that someone else is taking care of the situation; not my problem. This pandemic has reared the ugly head of the difference between the rich, the elitist, the poor and marginalized and in this spotlight we have a clear view of the difference between the haves and the have-nots.
I was disappointed to read a comment on facebook by a teacher who was complaining about the whole situation of having to work from home and how she was mad to be questioned about full pay. Many citizens don’t have jobs and at the beginning of this crisis there was confusion about whether educational structures were offering full online classes or not. Also, some districts were quicker about getting their online platform out to their community than others. The question about teachers getting full salary is a fair question because of the amount of confusion circulating around the online platform a the time. Unfortunately, this teacher made a comment on facebook that, and I quote “all people without degrees are essentially useless.” An elitist attitude coming from a spoiled, unruly person with no discipline and it was clear to me that she lacked any empathy or compassion for anyone else but herself. She later retracted when confronted and said that she was mad and frustrated, which I understand, however, her elitist comment is what surfaced and I sincerely believe that she holds on to that belief as I see so much of that elitist attitude of the “we against them” mindset.
This pandemic clearly shows we simply can’t live this way anymore. There must be equality and fairness for all. Not all have the same opportunity to pursue a university degree and many who have racked up student loans to do so are frustrated by both their debt level and not finding a job within their fields. All of this could be debated back and forth and I simply do not have the answer. I do know this, we must show respect toward all people. As a society we also must care about everyone’s well-being. For one to stand on their high towers and look down at someone who doesn’t have what they have simply does nothing to engage the world or it’s people into a healthy community. If you are someone responsible to educate our young, then I hope that you see fairness and equality for all as the road to higher education. We need people to perform all jobs in this society and to not respect and value all human beings is costing this planet it’s dignity and throwing us into the throes of chaos and in the midst of this chaos evil prevails. Resentment, anger, lack of confidence and and lack of value replaces, love, compassion, worthiness and pride in our communities.
We are being called to the wild and right now this pandemic is moving us forward to great changes. Some call it a reset and I agree the world is resetting itself. Like Buck in the movie, he was consistently pulled back to his master John, who led him with a kind hand, and his new beginnings with his new love and pack. As we move forward to a world post pandemic, we too will be pulled back and forth between our old life and the new beginnings. However, once Buck was able to fully immerse himself into his new life and live as he was meant to without prejudice, judgment, neglect and abuse, he was able to stand tall and move forward in confidence, love and respect and he went on to create a new community that stood for strength, dignity and respect for all. I pray we are able to do what Buck did in the movie and move forward in a new world, a world where we stand as one. I urge all to look for their “Call to the Wild” as now I am actively looking for my call to the wild. I want to move forward with love, and feel genuine passionate love for the world and all it’s people and let this be mine for the first time.
Johanne Fraser
The Art of Silence in a Noisy World 