Tag: pandemic

A red-furred bat hangs upside down from a slender branch, eyes open and looking into the camera

Pandemic Diaries / 2

Published on by karin swann-rubenstein2 Comments

The Great Invitation: On Learning to Listen to Bats and Pangolins

It is a full eleven days since we arrived at our sanctuary ‘shelter’ in the California hills. In eleven days our business — a nature-based retreat center serving non-profits, yogis and nuptials — has nosedived. The first wave of cancellations was followed by a second, then the third. Within four days, almost a third of our annual revenue had disappeared and my husband, Jon, after no small amount of hand-wringing, shuttered the business. In a matter of days, reality as we knew it had come to a grinding halt. Continue reading “Pandemic Diaries / 2” →

An elderly dog, looking anxiously into the camera stands with legs braced on snowy ground

Pandemic Diaries

Published on by karin swann-rubenstein2 Comments

Bodies In Motion

At some point, Jon woke me up. “You need to figure out what’s up with Lulu,” he said. “I took her out two hours ago and she’s up again.” I rolled over, looking out the window to assess the likelihood of falling back to sleep again after the task. Judging from the darkness of the sky, the first thought of sunrise hadn’t reached the horizon. We were still in the thick of night.

Lulu is our seventeen and a half-year-old ridgeback mix. Two months ago, she collapsed after the two-hour drive back home to Berkeley from Boonville, CA where my husband and I own a retreat center. It took Lulu two days to recover to her feet after the drive and we decided, with no small degree of sadness, we would not subject her to the car again. Lulu would not return to the hills she’d known for most of her life where she‘d bounded and raced across tall grasses, half deer, half-bird and returned to hunt lizards on the lawn for hours. Life would be simpler for her in Berkeley, less stressful at least. Continue reading “Pandemic Diaries” →