What you lose you will never get back

The Rose Garden at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver

 

1.

The thing to remember about giving up old values and accepting new values is that you are changing to the unknown and giving up what has sustained us for hundreds or thousands of years. The values you throw away create a vacuum and you don't really know what will fill that vacuum. You might think that change is for the better, and sometimes it is, but did we expect that we'd end up with the fragmented society that we now have? What we have is a world gone wrong, it's a society in decline. 

2.

The Industrial Revolution, World War One, and the Great Depression were turning points in history, another turning point is Covid-19. People were sequestered during Covid, possibly needlessly sequestered, and people are social beings, we need contact with other people. We were mandated into social isolation and what amounted to a kind of solitary confinement; the truth is, people need to be with people. Sensory deprivation starves the brain for sensory input; how long would any of us last in a sensory deprivation chamber? It is not long before the brain manufactures images, thoughts, and your emotions become unstable, extreme, and negative. 

3.

Covid-19 will have long-term consequences; as an example, and there are others, some children are suffering intellectual, emotional, and psychological problems from their time in Covid lock-down, but other people have also suffered. Some re-opened schools have become more violent;  hospitals have an increased number of children as patients for emotional and psychological problems; there is random violence on public transportation in Toronto and New York City; meanwhile, homeless encampments are in every city;  incidents of random violence have increased; sexual identity is under attack. Society is in decline and we won't get back what we have lost. But have we also lost our humanity?  

4.

We have traditional values, for instance honesty, faith, and family; but these are being cancelled and replaced with gender fluidity, diversity, and climate change. The adherents of these other values don't want to live in peaceful coincidence with the older values, they want to cancel these older values. And that is what is happening to society. One day good people will wonder what happened, how did they allow their core values to be destroyed, how did they allow these changes to occur that they never agreed to? But what we lose we will never get back. 

5.

What we give up, what is taken from us because we have amnesia and assume all will be well . . .  but we haven't agreed to these changes; we wake up one day and find we've been stripped of our older values. Change crept up on us and we weren't watching, we didn't let it happen, it just happened and in retrospect it was an enormous mistake. There they are in the streets or in television studios, the media, movie actors--entertainers seem to originate new values and the public follow them--and the educated middle class, consumers of the media, they've also made the conversion to the system of new values. And the politicians are along for the ride, and always out for more power. We are surrounded by displays of these new values and a new mentality that goes along with it; and if we don't agree with them we are cancelled, you can lose your employment, your friends, even your family. 

6.

What you lose you will never get back. There were great social changes in the 1960s and some people celebrated these changes but what if we were wrong and these counter culture values have only made life worse and not better? Back then, students occupied administration offices in universities, some people were marching in the streets, other people were smoking dope, there were changes in moral values, changes in every aspect of society, and now sixty years later we are living with the consequences of these changes; they did not create a more creative, loving, or free society, it is the opposite of this that has happened. We surrendered, we gave up, we acquiesced. What you lose you will never get back; change is not always for the better, it may end up being change for the worst. And are the people supporting change the best people, the most intelligent people, or are they out for themselves, politicians, intransigent moralists, ideologues? We know the answer to that question. 

Note: This has been revised and edited several times for clarity. I am a compulsive editor, I edit until I've said exactly what I mean. 

Community Garden at St. Thomas Anglican Church

Located at Rosedale Avenue and Somerled Avenue, St. Thomas Anglican Church has a long history in Montreal; the community garden is behind the church. I took these photographs on the last day of November, it was about -3 C and cold, some snow had fallen a few days before and was still on the ground. You can't see what they grow here but it seems to be more vegetables than flowers. The caretaker came out as I was standing looking at the garden, I mentioned that for some reason Covid had been good for gardens, they've flourished last year and this, but he said it was sad that so many people had died. Let's hope this snow melts before our long winter sets in. 

The Canadian Cottage Garden

Everything is the best ever this summer; I am referring to the garden. I have never seen the garden so full of flowers as this year; I keep saying to my wife that it is paradise out there, it is the Garden of Eden. 

The Canadian author, W.P. Kinsella, who wrote Shoeless Joe, from which the film Field of Dreams was adapted, wrote something like, "if you build it, they will come." Of course, it is true, including in gardening. If you want birds to visit your garden, have a bird feeder; better yet also have a bird bath with clean water in it every day. If you want insects, butterflies, bumble bees, honey bees, have a lot of flowers and the insects will come. If you want life, then plan ahead and make your backyard inviting for living beings. 

Your backyard, which was barren, just a lot of half dead grass and dirt, desolate and uninviting, can be transformed into a place that is full of life and activity, as I have done with our backyard. Yesterday, I sat in our backyard with my son who was visiting; right away he knew it was a cottage garden that I had aimed for (he hadn't visited for almost two years due to Covid-19). The work I put in for the last five or more years was finally evident. You can transform just about any piece of land into your own Garden of Eden. If you work on it, flowers will grow, the birds and insects will return. Even urban wildlife will stop by and visit; in the middle of last night I woke up to the smell of a skunk, but there are other nocturnal animals making their way through the garden, including raccoons and ground hogs. 

Here are some photographs taken this week of honey bees on echinacea flowers, cone flowers, that I planted a few years ago. Having been a beekeeper many years ago I always love to see honey bees in the garden, not because they are important pollinators, which they are, but because I have a lot of affection for honey bees; they're busy working, they won't sting you, it is live and let live in this life.

Notice the bee's back legs, the pollen sacs are for collecting pollen which is protein for honey bees

Good Friday morning on the Loyola Campus

It's quiet here on the Loyola Campus; classrooms are empty, dorms closed, library closed, no students on campus for over a year. 

 

Facing Sherbrooke Street West, chapel on the right

The Vanier Library

Main administration building

April 2020, at Strathearn Park

16 April 2020

 

April 2020, our dystopian calendar

 01 April 2020

The empty streets of March

The lock down was solitary confinement for many people; they couldn't stand the isolation. Most people are to some degree extroverts and need the presence of other people. The importance of socializing impressed itself on us; now socializing was restricted, wash your hands, wear a mask, social distance, no two cheek kisses, no hand shakes, avoid walking by anyone you might pass on the street. Arrows on grocery store floors directed people on walking in aisles, you walked in the direction of the arrow; if you lined up outside a store you were instructed to social distance from other people, two metres, six feet between people. Behave yourself, now, we don't want any trouble out of you... 

                                       

Can you take me back?

Can you take me back where I came from? One pre-Covid day I found myself singing this Beatle's song to myself as I walked along the street. Whatever it meant before Covid, it now has a whole new meaning.

                            Can you take me back?
                            Can you take me back where I came from?
                            Can you take me back?

                            Are you happy living here honey?
                            Honey are you happy living here?
                            I ain't happy living here baby
                            Honey can you take me back?

                                             --The Beatles, "Can You Take me Back"

Except for essential services, most stores, restaurants and schools were closed beginning around March 13, 2020. Grocery stores and pharmacies remained opened; at first there was some panic buying as can be seen by these empty shelves at our local IGA grocery store. The streets were deserted, buses had no passengers, we lined up to enter grocery stores, the fun had been taken from life and it has not returned. 

Not as widely reported was the increase in the number of suicides; there was one suicide a few blocks from here, we drove by the scene of this suicide a few minutes after it happened. I saw the body of the deceased lying on the grass surrounded by police officers. There was a second suicide also a few blocks away from where we live. Both of these suicides were at residences for old people. How could it have been otherwise? The old were isolated from other people and confined to their rooms.  

 

Our empty pandemic streets

Staying at home, businesses closed, the streets were eerily quiet in March 2020; it was hard to believe that there were people living in those apartment buildings and houses. Many people didn't go outside, they were afraid of being infected by Covid-19, or they thought they weren't allowed to leave their homes. I continued with daily walks and saw very few people.