Moss Whispers

Bold resilience we HAVE. It’s a part of our DNA and actually keeps us evolving enough to take on the changes and challenges of our world. We never know our real strengths until we are put in positions where we need to use them. These boldest parts of ourselves are hidden, even to us, until we need them. Those in China and elsewhere who are quarantined or self- quarantining for the good of ALL, are BOLD and definitely RESILIENT.

Among dictionary definitions I would choose “beyond the usual limits of conventional thought or action; imaginative.” Such undaunting boldness is not going ‘out there’ but courageously staying ‘in there’ and sometimes even behind a mask. I often listen to my son John on a site he uses to connect with thousands of people in China who are wanting to practice their English. For me, it is a way to hear my grown son’s voice and continue to learn from him. After all, he and all my children have been my best teachers. The audio this time is of John, reading a children’s book written by another bold, resilient man in China. He, perhaps even more intensely than John’s family, is dealing with quarantining, masking and using other precautions to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Nathan Jones, the author of “My Mask” has gone “beyond the usual limits of conventional thought or action” to meet these challenges and to help his daughter and many other children emotionally and physically navigate what could be scary, uncomfortable times.

In such moments, we each are often abruptly nudged to bring forth our individual and often unique gifts of awareness and creativity for the good of those around us! It’s a form of Bold Compassion. I am in awe of those who are doing their part to create a caring community beyond their masks, thermometers, disinfectant sprays, and moments of discouragement and even fear. Thank you for reminding us that we too have such innate boldness to draw from in challenging times. We’re grateful for your bold resilience, compassion. You are boldly resisting the toxins in our world and creating health and learning for ALL. We send you love and encouragement in these hard times!

Moss is my model of bold resilience. It’s non-competitive and quiet about its process but always there. It blankets the earth and ALSO absorbs toxins that other life forms can’t handle. It quietly filters the worst of chemicals from the air that we breathe. We don’t even realize how much it is functioning as a mask for us and our earth.

Mosses can brave sunshine, drought, cold, floods and snows. They absorb huge amounts of water in floods, preventing far worse erosion. It renews our earth by providing a moist, soft seed bed for new plant life and animal life to begin. It can grow almost anywhere and adapts to its environment.

Not only does moss live and let live. In addition to sustaining life, it also can filter and improve the quality of our lives. Moss has even been used to soak up oil spills in oceans and rivers. In the past it has been used for diapers, sanitary napkins, dressings for wounds, and other purposes that we can’t even fathom these days.

It’s a resilient evergreen that can survive the coldest and hottest and come back from extreme dry spells. It collaborates with its lichen friends (which are not mosses) to provide warmth while the lichens are supplying natural antifreeze ingredients for reindeer and other animals. It survives in cities and even deserts and I fully trust that if we humans dare to continue destroying our planet to the point of no human inhabitance, moss will once again cooperate with algae to restart life on this earth in some form or other! We can count on its bold resilience.

I want to be like that…like the brave men, women and children in China and elsewhere who in their own heroic perseverance are showing us what bold resilience looks like. I want to be like the mosses…absorbing toxins and turning them into love and health for us all.