Greetings!
Truth is a topic that fascinated me in 2017. It would seem that challenges to “the truth” are all around us. Consider, for example, that we’ve just passed the shortest day of the year. Oh, wait… No, it’s the opposite: we’ve just passed the longest day of the year. Actually, it depends. Are you in New York, perhaps, or maybe São Paulo? Come to think of it, if you’re in Addis Ababa, the question is irrelevant since the amount of daylight barely varies by an hour across the year.
How can the exact opposite be true at the same time when it comes to something as irrefutable as hours of daylight? Apparently, there are all kinds of ways this can be, and I suspect nature’s truth is more complex than we commonly assume. I, for one, am only beginning to grasp what “truth” really means, and from my current angle I expect more light will be shed on the matter in the days ahead.
But back to São Paulo for a moment if I may (where it happens to be the height of summer). If you are looking for a reason to be cheerful over the holiday season, this interview with Ricardo Cardim might help. He is repopulating Brazil’s largest city’s native Mata Atlântica (aka Atlantic Forest) one “pocket forest” at a time. To date, he has worked with hundreds of local volunteers, planting thousands of now-rare species in
São Paulo’s neglected urban nooks and crannies, reconnecting people with the city’s botanical origins. In response to that interview, a few of you have shared more examples of urban reforestation, which I’ve been adding to my Facebook page. While the daily news often skips this beat, there is a tremendous amount of habitat restoration underway that suggests, if viewed from the ground up, some trees are actually making a comeback.
Not that I am assuming it’s a holiday for you, of course. I was recently reminded of the need to be thoughtful about who celebrates what and when — if at all — when my beloved CBC Radio 2 played that woefully misguided BandAid song of 1984 which quite possibly did more to fund armed conflict than relieve hunger, in spite of the good we thought we were doing. I wrote a piece last year about my painful realization of this — “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” — but it still seems apt today. I don’t mention this lightly: some moments of illumination don’t feel good, yet new angles on accepted truth matter.
On a lighter note, this short video, lovingly hashtagged #AfricaForNorway, is likely to make you laugh whether you are in the north right now, listening to the sound of snow and ice being scraped off the sidewalk, or in the south wondering who would actually choose to live under such frigid conditions. If we are all really lucky, one day perhaps a new truth will make this meme a funny relic of a distant past, but for now it is at least a joyful play on stereotypes. I hope you find it — how shall I say — radiant?
Finally, an accepted truth from the angle of the holiday season around me would seem to be that it’s a time to give gifts. So in that spirit here is a link to a few of my favorite things, free for your taking. It’s particularly relevant if you are in the business of reorienting business, as a few of you are. If that’s not your thing, there is always the re-gift. ;-)
And now: here is to great days ahead, full of lightness of heart, new and uplifting truths, and plenty of time with those who bring out the brightest, most beautiful light within us.
Yours in connectedness,
Lorraine
PS Photos: Above, women walking in the Simien Mountains, Ethiopia; below, looking up at snowy, branches on a winter evening in New York City. Both photos taken by yours truly.
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