As of yesterday I am now fully vaccinated against Covid-19.  This past year has been quite the journey.  The one lesson that stands foremost in my mind is how overwhelmingly stupid the people of this country are (United States)...self-entitled, stupid, white people.   However, I also give 110% credit for those people are there such as Dr. Fauci who are fighting the good fight for the well being all of us...as well as the nurses that stand with us in line as we get our vaccines.  To these good people I give my heartfelt appreciation.

Finally, on this Good Friday, I want to share one of my favorite Jame Dillet Freeman poems:

I AM THERE
Do you need Me ?
I am there.
You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.
You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.
You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.
I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.
I am at work, though you do not understand My works.
I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.
Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me
as I AM, and then but as a feeling and a faith.
Yet I am here. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.
When you need ME, I am there.
Even if you deny Me, I am there.
Even when you feel most alone, I am there.
Even in your fears, I am there.
Even in your pain, I am there.
I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.
I am in you, and you are in Me.
Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for
only in your mind are the mists of "yours" and "mine".
Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.
Empty your heart of empty fears.
When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.
You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.
And I AM in all.
Though you may not see the good, good is there, for
I am there. I am there because I have to be, because I AM.
Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of ME does the world go forward.
I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.
I am the love that is the law's fulfilling. I am assurance.
I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by.
I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance.
I am your peace. I am ONE with you. I am.
Though you fail to find ME, I do not fail you.
Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never
wavers, because I know you, because I love you.
Beloved, I AM there.
~James Dillet Freeman

​Whom My Soul Loveth
By James Dillet Freeman

“I will give rise now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the broadways I will seek him whom my soul loveth.”

I have sought God in the streets of the world, in people, and in my own soul. Have I seen God?

I have seen snow falling, the spring green pushing upward, the summer flowers standing tall, the grain yellow lingering on in the autumn fields, the fruit burdening the orchards. I have felt the glory of the Sun. I have heard the feet of the rain running among the leaves. I have listened to the conversation of ancient trees. Night after night I have watched the steadfast stars and ever-changing Moon. The redbird has wakened me, and I have fallen asleep to the crickets' tune. The majesty of mountains, the wonder of the sea, the stretch of valleys, the flight of the sky—all these I have seen.

Are these God? No, but they are the garments of God.

I have felt the wonder of life; its patient experimenting; its outward, upward striving; its eternal unfoldment. I have heard the laughter of children. I have seen the look in a mother's eyes. I have watched lovers strolling hand in hand and heart in heart. I have known men brave enough to die for one another and selfless enough to live for one another. I have felt what a wonderful thing it is to be a human being.

Is this God? No, but it is the personality of God.

I have been alone under the sky when suddenly I was one with all the beauty and wonder and glory of the world. The sky was not high enough to hold my heart. I reached out through all the galaxies and nebulae, the infinite stretches of space, and I knew that they were in me and of me.

I have walked down a street crowded with strangers when suddenly they were not strangers and I felt myself expand and take them in. I felt their loneliest longings, their loftiest aspirations, their hopes and fears, their love and faith and joy. I was the self that transcends self, the larger Self that is not bound by space and time, the Self that knows it is one with the reality in all people.

I have gone into a quiet room, shut the doors of the senses, turned within, and found the peace that passes understanding, the stillness that is the very heart of stillness, the place where there is nothing at all; yet I am one with all that is.

Is this God? No, but it is the presence of God.

Where is God?

Search for God through the crowded city streets. Seek God in the peaceful countryside. Penetrate the nucleus of the atom. Follow the curve of emptiness. Go to the end of time. God will be there. Wherever you are, God is.

Know, you who seek God, that He seeks you more steadfastly. God seeks you. God loves you. God will not leave you alone. You could not walk alone, not for a moment, not in the darkest night. Though you stretched not out your hand, yet your hand would be in God's. Though you held not out your heart, yet God's heart would infold you.

… God is the infinite livingness of life that is in all and through all and under all, ever seeking to express itself.

Some seek to catch God in a net of words, but God is more than word. God is more than any thought that a man's mind can hold, yet God is the least thought that springs there. God is the first cry uttered by a newborn child, yet God is more than all the utterances of all the theologians.

God is more than all thought, all feeling, and all vision. God is the life that reveals that there is no death. God is the love that transforms hate into constructive energy. God is the intelligence that lifts ignorance into an understanding of Himself, of human beings, and of the universe.

O child of God, God is the truth of your own being!

Today had a couple of errands to run in St. Croix Falls this morning. On the way home I took the scenic route which is a country road that follows the St. Croix River....and stopped at Nevers Dam Landing to take a few pics.
​
Although the river is largely frozen over this far north, the current is running swiftly...and when it is quiet like it was this morning you can hear what I call "the song of the ice." I took pics yes...but then stood for a long time on the shore and listened to the quiet: the wind sloughing through the trees, chick-a-dees chirping, and the ice. Because of the swift current under the ice, there is a lot of pressure and the sounds are remarkable: the ice suddenly cracks and it sounds like a rifle shot, the ice slowly moving and it moans and softly groans, the ice chinks and cracks...all so audible. It is like a primordial melody.

The definition of "depraved indifference":  "To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant's conduct must be 'so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting."

This is how Wisconsin's state #republican controlled legislature governs.  There is no excuse for them and in my book each and everyone of them should be tried for manslaughter by depraved indifference.  Everytime the Governor tries to enact protective measures, #republicans do not work with him (during this time of plague) but instead prance off to their highly partisan court...which is so right-wing with unqualified judges that it could not make a constitutional decision if it wanted to!

So, here the the grim situation we are in as of today...each and everyone of us are truly on our own because there is no leadership (this is from the 11/11/2020 edition of UpNorthNews:

Second Consecutive Day of More Than 7,000 Cases Reported

• The state Department of Health Services (DHS) Wednesday reported 7,048 new positive cases, and 64 more Wisconsinites died due to complications associated with the virus.
  
  
• The Wisconsin Hospital Association on Wednesday reported another record number of COVID-19 patients needing hospitalization (2,102), with a record number of those patients (441) being cared for in intensive care units. There are 121 ICU beds currently available statewide. This is down seven beds from Tuesday.
  
  
• Only two of 72 intensive care beds at a combined 26 hospitals in the northwest part of the state were immediately available. Sixty-three of 673 medical-surgical beds in the region were available, according to the WHA.
  
  
• In central Wisconsin, seven of 128 intensive care beds are available. In the northeast region, just 15 of 207 intensive care beds are available, and 64 of 656 in southeast Wisconsin.  
  
  
• In Eau Claire, all three major hospitals report being at or near capacity.  
  
  
• Mayo Clinic Health System officials said none of the system’s intensive care and medical-surgical beds are available at its Eau Claire, Menomonie, Barron, Bloomer, and Osseo sites. As of late Tuesday, 83 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized at those sites.
  
  
• Similarly, all medical surgical beds at Marshfield Medical Center-Eau Claire’s 44-bed hospital were full Wednesday morning,

Chief Medical Officer: Overwhelmed Wisconsin Hospitals Reaching 'Tipping Point,' of No Longer Being Able to Save People

• Coronavirus cases in Wisconsin have reached a “tipping point” in which available resources to treat COVID-19 patients may soon not be enough to save the lives of some patients hospitalized with the virus, state Department of Health Services Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ryan Westergaard said Wednesday.
  
• “Right now our biggest concern is that hospitals have the resources to treat people,” Westergaard said when asked about the most serious impact of rapidly rising COVID-19 cases. “We’re close to a tipping point. And that tipping point is when we stop being able to save people.”
  
• On Wednesday 7,048 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Wisconsin, the second consecutive day of more than 7,000 cases and the third-highest one-day total. 
  
• Hospitals throughout Wisconsin report they are at or near capacity to treat patients and are struggling to provide enough staff to provide care because of exposures to COVID-19.
  
  --Reported by Julian Emerson
  
  
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God help us all.

On or about March 8, 2020, I started what is called now "physical distancing" or "social distancing."  Today is April 4, 2020, and it is now darn near a whole month of this type of near solitary confinement.  There is no end to this plague in sight and the federal government of the United States is in total disarray.  The incompetence of Mr. Trump and his republican cohorts is breathtaking.  My nickname for Mr. Trump is "Olde Pucker Lips" for his mouth resembles an asshole and every time he talks, nothing but shit falls out of his mouth.  Lately he has been trying to gaslight the population of this country that 100,000 to 200,000 deaths is a sign he is doing a good job!!!  There are mornings in which I wake up in despair.

So when I wake up and despair is filling my thoughts and eating at my soul, I adjust my focus.  First I begin to count my blessing for which there are many.  Then I gaze out the windows of my home and regardless if it is cloudy and rainy (snow??) or sunny and clear, I declare it a beautiful day.  This is my way of moving into an attitude of gratitude...and the despair fades away.

As a gay man I've already gone through one great plague...the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s...and at times attended three funerals a week.  Funerals for good young men that were dear friends.  At the time, it seemed as if that plague would never end.

So, with that experience in mind, I realize that someday we will get past this moment in time...and that we will be looking back...those of us that make it.  History will harshly judge Olde Pucker Lips and his republican party that allowed this to happen to the American people.

And we too will look at our behavior during this time.  Did we act with knowledge, faith, bravery and with good hearts?  Or did we act out of ignorance, fear and hate?

The choice is ours.

These days that are somewhere between winter and spring, I find myself drifting.  It seems there is very little that inspires me at this time.  I find myself doing a lot of reading.  There is an author I recently discovered through the Gandy Dancer Bookstore in Webster, Wisconsin.  His name is William Kent Krueger and he writes of murder, mystery and mayhem in the northwoods of Minnesota's Boundary Water area.  So this is how I've been drifting by as the days drift by as the wee cottage slowly wakes from winter's tight hold.

It is truly a time of rest.  All is well.

There is so much beauty to be found in Wisconsin.  It is easy to take this beauty for granted when we live in it on a day to to day basis.  All we have to do is stop and open our eyes and pay attention.  Yesterday while I was driving to the grocery store I suddenly stopped and paid attention to this river that I had driven past many times.  Here is a little bit of history about this river:  "The Straight River flows through the Straight River Tunnel Channel, a well-preserved glacial tunnel flanked by the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. This tunnel channel was formed between 15,000-18,000 years ago, near the end of the most recent Ice Age. During this time, melt water from deep beneath the layer of ice on the glacier's surface was forced under extreme pressure towards the glacier's margin. The Straight River Tunnel Channel is considered to be the finest example of this rare glacial phenomenon in Wisconsin."  ~ Wikipedia 1.29.2020

Yesterday's "adventure" was a drive to Copper Falls State Park which is about two or so hours from Frederic. It has always been one of my favorite parks for it encompasses three waterfalls and at least one lake. The drive to and from there is through the Chequamegon National Forest...and along the drive I encountered three flocks of wild turkeys crossing the road. I stopped for each and every one of them so they could cross the road safely. I also saw a female elk crossing the highway (stopped for her too)...and realized as I drove through 30+ mile of "elk crossing" warnings, that elk have finally been re-established in this part of the country. Lastly attached is a picture of Copper Falls from today. It was a good day...