Covid-19 – Health4earth

Non-violent November

“Victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance” Diwali celebration

These are challenging times as Covid-19 continues to harm our communities and families. To make things worse we are living in a time of misinformation and darkness. Many refuse to accept the truth. As the American election takes place it is my wish we move out of the darkness of lies and fear into a new beginning of hope, science, understanding and truth.

It is a hard when we have an American president that doesn’t see reality and truth. Somehow, and it will be hard, we must accept the results of the election with non-violence and hope for a better world. Every vote must be counted, our democracy depends on it, and then we must accept the results. Important November days to celebrate and look forward to with hope:

November 1, World Vegan Day

November 3, American Election Day

November 10, World Science Day for Peace and Development

November 11, Veterans Day

November 13, World Kindness Day

November 14 Diwali “Victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”.

November 15, America Recycles Day, make it a day to reuse and reduce

November 26, Day of gratitude, Thanksgiving Day

Below the Actions for Happiness people have a calendar for New November with many good suggestions to try something new:

September Searching

Searching for Truth

This Actions for Happiness post is about self-care and telling the truth! Living in a pandemic we need self-care and we need truth.

Climate march in New York City — We must demand a higher standard for telling the truth, don’t believe everything you hear!

Part of self-help September is telling the truth, but what do you do when you have elected officials that lie, lie and lie some more, and citizens that believe their lies? People that lie are unhappy, they can’t accept reality. These are strange times with a pandemic, and the need for correct information is enormous. When elected officials have a misunderstanding of the truth, and create alternative facts, and others don’t correct and challenge them we are in big trouble. If we don’t have a set of facts to agree on, people searching for truth make things up and spread theories about what they believe might be true. This is like ancient people trying to make sense of what they don’t understand. We need to have a base of facts to work from and we have lost that. Yes, I misled the U.S.

Democracies can not survive without understanding what is really happening. That is why we have universities, scientists, news media and newspapers to search out the truth. In order to function as citizens in our society and in our democracy, we need to have a common basis of facts.

This is not ancient times, we have science, we have a hard working journalists and educators that are masters at getting the facts correct. At this time in history we all need a active commitment to always tell the truth. Start with telling the truth yourself, and demand truth-telling from all your acquaintances. Telling the truth is easy, demand it from everyone!

How do you start to search for truth?

Get the facts and be open minded. We often think we are correct when we aren’t.
Do additional research, read newspapers, and ask questions.
Make sure your sources are credible.
Ask yourself, does this make sense?
Never spread things unless you know the source and check at least 2 more sources. Facebook, friends, family, and Fox talk shows, are not reliable sources.

From September of 1939:

All I have is a voice

To undo the folded lie,

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street

And the lie of Authority

Whose buildings grope the sky:

There is no such thing as the State

And no one exists alone;

Hunger allows no choice

To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die. By W. H. Auden

Ten more self-care ideas to get you through the pandemic from the Washington Post. Read here.

Here is the Actions For Happiness calendar for September. An important part of self-care involves telling the truth and never spreading falsehoods.

Zero Waste Wednesday

end food waste — Help the environment by reducing food waste

Food waste is a waste of water, a waste of energy and transportation, and a waste of time and labor. Making an effort to reduce food waste is an important thing we can all do for the economy and the Earth. In America 40 percent of the food produced is wasted!

We waste too much food, and there is a food crisis with this pandemic. Many are unemployed, and lines are long at food shelves, which are experiencing a massive demand. A big disconnect, many are starving, and at the same time we waste lots of food! Today, no recipe required, instead of throwing food away use your creativity to create a meal with left overs and produce you have in your house. Can you make an omelet, soup, wrap, or stir fry with what you have? Have fun, be creative!

“Even before COVID-19, Americans, on average, were tossing away more than a pound of uneaten food per person each day, amounting to some 400 pounds of food thrown out annually. That’s far more than any other wealthy country — about 50% more food waste per capita than France and nearly double that of the U.K. According to U.S. government estimates, the cost of U.S. food waste comes out to $161 billion annually. The environmental costs are abysmal.” Read the article by Amanda Little here.

These are important facts we should be aware of, from the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Food production causes 30 % of greenhouse emissions, 80% of global deforestation, and uses 70% of the world’s fresh water!

Too much food is waste! — How can you use those leftovers?

Great suggestions for reducing your food waste.

Make your Wednesday zero waste!

Take A Breath For George

george floyd — Take a breath for George, for peace, and a breath for justice.

This Juneteenth is a rare moment for all of us to proclaim in one voice that Black Lives Matter and that we won’t tolerate anything less than justice for all Black lives.

“I implore all of us to take a breath for justice, to take a breath for peace, to take a breath for our country and to take a breath for George.” Benjamin Crump

I hope we are all indeed breathing deeply, always, but especially now. Breath clears the body of toxins; breath renews. The Israelites under Pharaoh could not hear the words of hope offered by Moses because of “kotzer ruah” — shortness of breath (Exodus 6:9). They could not breathe, so they could not hear, so they could not hope. We have a choice. I hope we are appreciating the miracle of breath — how it sustains life, how it brings calm, how it creates spaciousness of spirit, so that each of us can act with compassion and wisdom, with intention and focus.
For all those suffering in this pandemic, and for George Floyd of blessed memory, let us all indeed take a breath for justice, for peace, for our country and for life itself.
Rabbi Shosh Dworsky, St. Paul in a letter to the editor, https://www.startribune.com/