How Did We Get Here, Part I? …

Updated: August 22, 2021 

Also See:

If A Mindful Cult (Of GRAD) Can Exist, We Are It!

There we were, my NH/ZOP Board Members and myself, trying our best to put words to the experiences we were sharing on a journey we had not intended to take and for which we had no map and an unclear destination beyond simply surviving the threat and almost ceaseless crises covid-19 had brought into our lives. 

We knew we had to get to a safer shore. Years of traveling together as a board, our newest member, Sue, with us now going on twenty years, had developed in us an unfailing trust in one another, in our shared values and in the methodology we, at times, call our "exceptional community model. 

Answer, Short Form: 
With a lot of help from our friends.

We wanted people to listen in to us on what is now, on 8.22.21, an almost forgotten online radio show, to be reassured by our words and experiences. 

We had found sustenance and strength through our ways. We hoped others would be inspired and maybe want to join us. 

I think we did not succeed very well in this broadcast. We knew then and again now that we barely knew how to grasp it all -- life in the era of covid-19. 

Yet we did know how to hang together and be stronger and wiser for it. 

Now, here we are, coming up on a year since the original post of this article, that long ago broadcast, jumbled up as we had been back then and still are today though now definitely more schooled in the crisis management of our lives. 

On that not very successful radio show, Anastasia, Sue, Terry and Lisa agreed we would share how we are managing our pandemic lives, on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, amid myriad personal crises and up against the backdrop of covid-19. 

(Note: Following a battle with cervical cancer, Lisa passed away in mid-March.) 

It seemed simple enough when I offered them my draft radio show outline. Everyone got on board immediately, the four of us agreeing we were pleased with the plan, starting off approximately like this… 

This is Anastasia Rosen-Jones on Anastasia The Storyteller on Blog Talk Radio, today with three of my esteemed board members, Sue deVeer, Lisa Boyer and Terry.

We are thankful to be here, alive, healthy and relatively stable -- and very grateful for what we, as a board, have managed to create in the form of a kind of lemonade made out of the lemons of the past months, since mid-March when quarantining became the rule of the land. 

Since that time, we have – 

Organized a Nationwide Pandemic Survivors Support Group that Sue now leads, regularly on Mondays and Wednesdays. Terry co'leads; 

Established a regular, ongoing Manuscript Study Group, meeting on Friday mornings, led by me, as after all, they are my manuscripts; 

We have also created a Forest Bathing Sanctuary to share the wide-open safe spaces we have at our Harpers Ferry Retreat Center; 

And, of course – The adventure of my having a brand-new book in progress, intended to be the first in a series of four parts, the collection to be titled Lost Hope Regained (series working title) with book one to be titled Camelot Disrupted, (also working title) is really exciting. 

The spotlight was to be on the latter, the book publishing project and all it entails, the exciting donation pledge we received last month that gave this effort the boost it needed and now the book writing and publishing adventure itself that is developing out of it. 

Instead, I read out the list of our pridefully celebrated organizational accomplishments, achieved during the course of the pandemic thus far, challenged though each of us has been, like everyone else. 

Sue offered… “How did we get here,” standing back a moment to gather into her mind what seems, day-by-day, more and more remarkable to us: helping one another manage day in and day out pandemic challenges. 

Well we all certainly are amazed at this list of efforts, tailor-designed for the crises we are now enduring! 

But how have we managed it? 

And In the midst of the pandemic? 

Short Answer: With a lot of help from one another.

As board members who have grown, even with some touchy moments, and deepened our friendships through this time of distress, we are walking a long road but not alone. 

Sometimes it seems we are helping one another to be living almost a miracle of transformation through crisis. Don't you want to find out more? We thought you would. So we'll keep at it, trying to share our experiences, our hurdles, day by day, and the victories we have won --- with just the right amount of support and insight helping boost one another through this time.