Notable and quotable: coronavirus (2)

The first roundup of coronavirus posts was getting a little unwieldy, so here’s a second instalment.

Various posts have been reflecting on the implications of social distancing, and being cooped up with your partner and/or house-mates.

Nimue Brown has written a great post on maintaining good communication in small spaces.

The absolute key thing for surviving with other people in a small space, is not to take your feelings out on each other. It’s easy to do this without noticing – snapping at someone because you feel grumpy, getting angry over small things that aren’t really the problem.

A gardening blog that I follow has a nice post on using the language of flowers to communicate.

I wrote a post on hugging while standing two metres apart.

Many people are going to be deprived of touch and hugging while self-isolating during the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s a method for hugging while standing two metres apart (the recommended distance to avoid transmission of the virus).

Cat Rambo, a science fiction author, has some suggestions for online activities.

Text pictures of the amusing moments of your day or a video of your cat being stupid to someone who’ll appreciate it. Scroll back, find someone you haven’t talked to in a while, and text them a hello. Reach out.

More suggestions for things to do while on COVID-19 retreat from Julian Vayne, including a ritual to Hygieia, goddess of hygiene. Some other suggestions were to phone your friends and to stop smoking (I wouldn’t recommend vaping instead though, as that won’t help your respiratory system at all).

Well, great minds think alike, because I just published a ritual to the Asklepiadae (the family of Asklepios and Hygieia).

Be ye far from us, all miasma and uncleanness.
We banish all infection, all decay, and all illness.
And we ask the kindly spirits of cleanliness
To inhabit and protect this place.

David the Pagan Yogi shared a lovely post of him playing Beethoven on Instagram and also a blogpost about seeing the positive in this time of crisis:

Everyone dismissed the Extinction Rebellion Movement last year, for trying to make everyone rethink how we live and work as a society – and yet everything they suggested (and we refused) is now being considered to try to slow the spread of disease: thinking globally but acting locally, restricting air travel, reducing car use, changing working practices and reevaluating our work/life balance to prioritise family and health instead… And in the first affected areas, the months long restrictions have led to a slowing down and humanisation of society – and a huge drop in the immediate environmental damage our urban living does…

Spare a thought for Indigenous communities affected by the coronavirus outbreak (and donate online if you can). Many of them are already struggling with a lack of clean running water, poisoning from industrial effluent, high rates of tuberculosis, and mould and overcrowding in inadequate housing, so they’re likely to be hard-hit by the coronavirus.

In Australia, there’s a special government task force for Indigenous communities, who were disproportionately impacted by the outbreak of H1N1 in 2009.

Keep checking The Wild Hunt Pagan news site for updates on events that are being cancelled or moving to online-only.

Featured image: landscape on Kos, by Greg Montani on Pixabay (public domain)