This is Iyabo. She was bought from a beautiful woman at a market in 1996 when we lived in Kokomo Indiana.

I loved her from the beginning.  I loved her dress, her jewelry and I loved the woman who sold her to me.  The woman was from Africa and explained, in a beautiful accent, how she was sharing a little piece of her culture through Iyabo.  Being an artist, I appreciated the craftsmanship and the attention to detail which brought her to life.

Iyabo has been on and off my shelves for almost 26 years.  She is still a beautiful piece of art, and she still makes me smile.

Fast forward to today…

I was unpacking some of my treasures and I came upon my beloved Iyabo.  How things have changed since she became a part of my life.  I needed to tell her… everything.

I told her, today, it might be considered cultural appropriation if I put her on my shelves. 

She laughed.

I described how white and black humans have been divided – again. We’re told to no longer judge a person on their character or integrity but by skin color, beliefs, where they live, and what they do for a living.

She furrowed her brows.

I warned her that any discussions of differing opinions on subjects, such as these, were basically forbidden.  Respect and civil discourse were a thing of the past.

She became sad.

I explained that the freedoms her designer came to America to find, are starting to crumble.  Sadly, while many of us stand on the sidelines and watch it happen.

She was shocked.

Not to be a complete downer to this little work of art, there was some discussion how I truly believe, people just want to be loved, heard, hugged and to be free.  They want to take pride in their jobs (as her designer had), have food to eat, live without fear of crime and believe in what people say to them.  People want the truth, which is hard to share at times, rather than the lies which seem to come so easily to so many.

She whole-heartedly agreed.

I also described “social media” to her, which was not around when she was created.  “Although humans think they are truly advanced,” I shared “we are not ready for this type of communication. We share “our” truths and believe it should and must be “everyone’s” truth.  We’ve forgotten that “the” truth is truth…”

She understood.

I finished up our talk and placed her in a perfect place on the shelf so I can smile at her daily.  She’ll remind me of the beautiful intentions, the talent, and the reasons her designer came to this country. 

She’ll tell me, often, to ignore what’s being published or posted and continue to believe as I have always believed, that people are basically good. 

Her cute little smirk will impress upon me how character and integrity need to be brought back into our everyday lives and taught ‘by example’ to younger generations.

“Character is one’s moral and ethical code, and integrity means that one lives according to that code”

My wish is that you have an Iyabo come into your life to keep you centered and grateful.

Grateful for you,

Sheree

P. S. Thank you E. Robbin for being at that market and bringing Iyabo into my life.

I’ve been pretty distracted with our house build this year, but I haven’t stopped observing how divided we’ve become. 

Who can’t observe it?

I’m not a conspiracy nut, well perhaps the nut part, but sit back and look through my eyes as to what I’ve observed.

Here are the daily rantings from the MSM and social accounts…

We are:

Divided by religion.  Everyone hates Islam, and Jews and Christians.

Divided by race.  Everyone hates blacks and whites and Asians.

Divided by class. Everyone hates people with money, any amount more than they have.

Divided by political beliefs.  Everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, evil and selfish and everyone who voted for Biden is not.

Divided by the status of the environment.  Everyone who uses plastic water bottles and straws are evil, but masks in the ocean are ok.

And now we are divided by a virus that was man-made. 

Divided by the treatment of said virus. Those who believe there are therapeutics to prevent it and/or lessen said virus and the power of natural immunity and those who agree with a government mandated therapeutic that does not eliminate said virus. 

And now we’re divided by the creation of a “travel” card that will eventually eliminate our freedoms one by one, if we do not act and say, as we are told.

Dividing us is the easiest way to remove us from our family ties, our friends, our beliefs, and our morals. 

Removing what unites us helps create the “new world order” made up of group think rather than of individual beliefs. “Critical thinking” is taught to second graders, but many adults have forgotten how or are too lazy, to critically think for themselves.

When you have all the power: MSM, funded politicians, social media, entertainment industry to project only one way of thinking, you eliminate the voices of those with whom you disagree. Dividing people doesn’t eliminate their truths; it only creates suspicion and more division.

So why are we listening to organizations who tell us how we should feel about one another?  Why don’t we just look into the faces of our friends, our neighbors, the people waiting in line at the grocery and observe the love they have for their family, their jobs, and friends.  They didn’t need to run through an approved checklist for those feelings, they just have them because they are humans! 

My friend is going in for brain surgery tomorrow to remove a tumor.  Do you need to know her religion, her race, if she has money, who she voted for or if she’s been vaccinated to pray for her?  And if you do not have a God, do you need all those prerequisites to wish her well?

I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

I wish you all a blessed Christmas spent with loving family and friends, undivided, with the realization that we are all precious human beings no matter what color, sex, religion, amount of money, who we voted for or our vax choice.

And, Nancy, you might have a lot more prayers tonight than you expected my friend…

Grateful for you and Merry Christmas,

Sheree

Frequency of Fear

When California shut down over a year ago in March, I believed in my heart that everyone would get the ‘Rona or at least some version of it. Since we had a lot of downtime, I did a lot of research.  I read studies and reports from NCBI, the WHO and the Virology Journal (official publication of National Institutes of Health).  Plus, I listened to doctors who were actually treating ‘Rona patients; doctors who were not living in a frequency of fear from the start.

About three months in, I watched how the virus was affecting the elderly and those who had comorbidities.  Of course, there were healthy people who did not fare well or died, but those percentages were extremely low.  At this point “my” frequency of fear began to decline.

I felt blessed, I didn’t have any underlining issues and I’m not on any prescriptions (other than hormones to keep me from growing a third eye).  Being a pretty healthy 65-year-old I see my naturopath twice a year for a well visit to maintain a healthy immune system and have only seen a doctor when I’ve torn or severed things…  

Knowing all this, both my husband and I decided we were NOT waiting in our house to die, anymore.  We were going to get on with the business of living, void of the ‘Rona fear.  We masked up, sanitized our hands, phones, door handles and steering wheels for months while living in the frequency of fear.  We were now done with the ‘fear’ part.

In June we decided to travel to Arizona for our son’s small backyard ‘covid’ wedding and celebrated with the bridal party and our daughter.  I travelled to Texas to visit with friends in October, and we had Thanksgiving and Christmas with our children and their friends, hugging them all.

I worked in clients’ homes during December and January and enjoyed eating in restaurants while in Arizona.  We sold our home this February, which involved possibly infected strangers “touching” random things throughout the house and up to today, we continue to make trips to Arizona to check on the house build – minus the fear.

For our sanity we had to leave the frequency of fear behind us.

The Shame of ‘Rona

With the decision to regain my life, I could sense the fear from friends and family members with the choices I was making – the visits, trips and working in strangers’ homes.  I quietly respected their opinions and fears and continued with my life, while still reading, researching, and learning about the ‘Rona. 

As more and more people I knew came down with it, I found it interesting that they didn’t really talk about it.  Some even had friends avoid them “after” they had gotten it.  I wondered:

• Why didn’t people post having the ‘Rona on Facebook and celebrating their recovery?
• Why was posting your vaccination card (a vaccination which reduces the amount of the disease by 95%) more important than telling everyone you recovered from a disease (which has about a 99.75% recovery rate depending on your health and age).  
• Why did it appear shameful to have gotten the ‘Rona?

When I talked with friends, the only ‘Rona stories they had, were about those who were hospitalized or died.  Hardly anyone said, “Oh they had it and they’re fine now.”  It’s as if they were forbidden to speak of anything other than the severe cases.

My daughter-in-law, Linda who is a nurse, echoed the same sentiment.  She said no one ever talks about the people who have recovered at home or walked out of the hospital in a few days. 

Were people who got the ‘Rona not following the rules we were told to follow? 

Were they rule breakers? 

Is that why they got it?

Rewind to six weeks ago…

We drove out to Arizona to visit Alex and Linda and to admire the cinderblocks on our build.  The last day of our visit, Alex, who is always masked and sanitized and works from home, started to feel punky.  We thought it was allergies or (hanging out with us) a hang-over.  He got tested the next day and – ta da – positive, he had the ‘Rona. 

A few days later, Jeff, who was now back in Cali, started to feel a bit feverish.  He got tested the next day and – ta da – positive.  He was a little congested with a fever, a bit achy and tired.

I had already flown to Denver the day Alex got his test back. My daughter (who had the ‘Rona a few weeks earlier) wanted me to get tested.  Showing no symptoms, I got tested the next day which came back negative.  I flew back to Phoenix four days later after having no symptoms until I got off the plane.  I was feeling feverish, so I went to get tested, again my test came back negative.  Later that day I was achy and mimicking my son’s symptoms, so Linda said, “You have it, go to bed.”  Two days later we decided I should get tested again and finally – ta da – positive.

There was no blame to go around because we were all masked up, sanitized, and did what they told us. Remember, I believed we’d all be getting it someday.

Alex, on the other hand, could not apologize enough for giving it to us.  I reminded him, again, that it was OUR choice to spend time with him, his wife, and his sister.  We would have lost a year of experiences with them if we had stayed in our condo and it just wasn’t worth it to us.  We could have gotten it from ANYWHERE and ANYONE, but we loved that “he” was kind enough to share his version of it with us.

I was now quarantining in Phoenix and Jeff was in Anaheim with the cat.  My symptoms were a dry cough, a few aches here and there, tired in the afternoon, a mild fever and eventual loss of taste (a great diet tool).  While my symptoms were less than a cold or flu I’ve had, the words that have been repeated over and over and over by MSM and the government for a year echoed in my ears.  

I would end up in the hospital, on a ventilator, and die. Or I would become a super spreader and everyone I came in contact would die.

I started to feel like a leper who should be sent to an island far off the coast to live out the rest of my days away from humanity. But those thoughts lasted about 3.5 seconds because I am, for the most part, a logical person. I am a healthy person, I work out, I take supplements, one of which is Vitamin D, I’m not overweight and have no comorbidities.

After twelve days of doing absolutely nothing but catching up on some Netflix series with Alex, sitting in the sun, and going for walks, I received a negative test and headed back home.

During all this downtime, I questioned a lot of things.  Why aren’t we listening to doctors who want to treat us prophylactically to keep us from going to the hospital? Why were so many of them censored from social media?

“The health system would be less burdened if more patients were treated before they require hospitalization, and there are promising therapeutic options that patients can administer themselves at home.” WSJ – “Too Much Caution is Killing Covid Patients”

Why aren’t we taking more natural approaches to keep ourselves healthy? 

Will this virus finally make us take a serious look at the overall health of the country and world?

So, let’s revisit that Frequency of Fear

It’s all we hear, read, see, breathe, drink and eat.  Removing ourselves from the frequency doesn’t downplay the damage this virus does to some.  But knowing all you can about the virus being a virus might help.  Keeping healthy and changing the frequency of fear to one of hope and faith helps.

I’ve personally seen what the fear of leaving the house has done to two friends who passed away in the last four months; not from Covid, but from the lockdown caused by Covid. 

There are many ‘fearful’ things in our lives:  driving, flying and sadly, for me – riding a bike.  If you think about it, those fearful things are choices, just like our choice to resume our lives with the possibility of getting the ‘Rona.

I do admit, a month before the ‘Rona hit, our immune systems were probably compromised by the stress of staging, selling, packing, moving to storage and the apartment – all in four weeks.  Self-care wasn’t a top priority at that time.

Vaccine Judgement 

I’m going to be completely honest with you, I never planned on getting the vaccine. I can see the head nods and eye rolls happening right now and I’ll be expecting a knock on the door from the CDC, WHO or Vax police any minute. Having natural immunity from the ‘Rona now, works for me.

I also wanted to “slow the roll” on things. In the beginning of ‘Rona, doctors didn’t really know how to treat it.  They treated the “Rona like other similar types of viruses.  But later, they stepped back and did a “rethink” on their rush to ventilate patients.  Reuters – “Special Report:  As virus advanced, doctors rethink rush to ventilate.”

I know many who have serious underlying conditions – cancer, type 1 and 2 diabetes, lung issues and those who are overweight and have heart conditions.  They are choosing to get vaccinated to protect their health – I get it.  But please don’t judge those of us who decide not to get the shot because we may have had the ‘Rona.  Some people have personal reasons, some cannot be vaccinated and some people may be waiting until 2023 when the human trials of the vaccine are finished. 

If you’re vaccinated, you’re good, right?

I am not an anti-vaxer.  Under the suggestion from my Naturopath and the CDC, who says 1 in 3 “old” people will get the Shingles, I got the shots.  I then proceeded to be really, really sick after both of them.  So, see, I do get vaccines. 

I had my children vaccinated with the required Tdap, MMR shots and also intentionally infected them with chicken pox when they were small by having lunch with friends who had it.  Bad parents, perhaps?  There were no HPV shots, flu shots or pneumonia shots for them – that is what their immune systems are for.  

On April 18, 2021 a volcano erupted on the island of St. Vincent.

“Gonsalves said only vaccinated residents who have been checked and identified by Dr. Simone Keizer-Beache, the St. Vincent and the Grenadines chief medical officer, will be allowed to board the ships out of an abundance of caution.”

So, there’s over a 90% recovery rate from a virus vs. 100% chance of death by hot flowing magma By not choosing to get a vaccine we are now subjected to death by lava, sounds reasonable.

Vaccination Talking Points

‘Rona and Costs Associated with It

I’ve read A LOT of the talking points about getting the vaccine and one point stated that unvaccinated people should be responsible for the extreme cost of hospitalization due to the ‘Rona.  If we start going after those who choose not to be vaccinated because of this reasoning, will the next group we go after be the obese?

Obesity can result in a combination of causes and individual factors:  behavior and genetics.( Adult Obesity Causes & Consequences | Overweight & Obesity | CDC )

Obesity can manifest into diabetes 2, high blood pressure, stroke, osteoarthritis, cancer and a high chance of death from Covid.  Poorer mental health outcomes and a reduced quality of life make obesity an incredibly serious health issue.  (Obesity – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic)

Here are some medical costs related to the obesity issue from a 2016 report by the Milken Institute:

• In 2016, chronic diseases driven by the risk factor of obesity and overweight accounted for $480.7 billion in direct health care costs in the U.S., with an additional $1.24 trillion in indirect costs due to lost economic productivity.
• The total cost of chronic diseases due to American obesity and overweight was $1.72 trillion—equivalent to 9.3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).
• Obesity as a risk factor is by far the greatest contributor to the burden of chronic diseases in the U.S., accounting for 47.1 percent of the total cost of chronic diseases nationwide.

Instead of addressing this issue head on, which is now considered rude, we glamorize it.  Cosmopolitan in their January 2021 issue included an article “This is Healthy – 11 women on why wellness doesn’t have to be one-size-fits-all.”

The CDC is quoted in this article from Beckers Hospital Review that “among 71,491 US adults who were hospitalized with Covid-19, 27.8% were overweight and 50.2% were obese.”  

Seventy-eight percent …

Just last week the WHO published an article stating: “In 2019, an estimated 1.5 million deaths were directly caused by diabetes. Another 2.2 million deaths were attributable to high blood glucose in 2012.”

Should this be considered a type of pandemic?  

I am genuinely concerned for the health of people, including the obese and overweight, but bottom line, I have no right to tell them how to live their lives.  So, comparing the statement that non-vaccinated covid positive people should be responsible for hospital costs seems ludicrous when comparing the illnesses and financial burden caused by obesity.

Vaccines for the ‘Rona are just like Measles and Smallpox

Another talking point among people is comparing getting vaccines for the ‘Rona to that of smallpox and measles.  It took me a while to find something in which I could compare them equally.  That something was the:

Case Fatality Rate (CFR) “The proportion of people who die from a specified disease among all individuals diagnosed with the disease over a certain period of time”.

Case fatality rate of Covid

0.003% (Age 0-19)

0.02% (Age 20-49)

0.5% (Age 50-69)

5.4% (Age 70+)

Case fatality rate of Smallpox

Variola minor virus < 1%.

Variola major virus ~ 30%

Case fatality rate of Measles

15% – 25%

Please take a moment to re-read these percentages. I don’t see how these vaccines can be compared to each other.

Vaccine Passports (my personal feelings…)

This might be the hill I die on because if this door opens where will it stop?

The state and federal governments know pretty much everything about us: driving patterns (GPS), communication (phone text and audio – not to mention Siri listening and answering questions I never asked her). Entertainment habits (Cable, Apple TV, Netflix, Hulu, Kindle), dining and travel (charges on our credit cards, which banks have willingly handed over to the government), items we own like our house and car (because we pay taxes and registration fees to the government). They also know what type of cat litter we use, if we purchase from Amazon.

And although I believe they already have access to our medical records, I hoped it would be the last place of privacy for people.

With the suggestion of the passport we should be getting our papers ready so we can verify up-to-date measles and tuberculosis shots because 207K people were killed in 2019 from the measles and 1.4 million people died from TB in 2019 worldwide.

They’re gonna want to know if you currently have a herpes breakout and the status of your HIV/Aids, because these can be transmitted to other humans.

Women should be prepared to report when they are ovulating just in case we need to start controlling the population.

If you have heart issues, lung or breathing problems your passport will inform them that strenuous workouts are not recommended.

For the safety of all, before you drive your car or leave a restaurant, a breathalyzer will be conveniently located to check your blood alcohol levels – an Uber will automatically be called for you. I’m sure they’re working on a quick test for THC in the blood, to also keep the public safe.

Your passport will contain everything, conveniently in one place to allow easy access for everyone. What could go wrong?

Guess my days of travel and entertainment are gone forever…

Summary

Ok, so we’ve all been dealing with the Frequency of Fear for more than a year.  We’ve possibly felt Shame or passively Shamed someone for having the ‘Rona (like “I told you so”) and now we’re all frenzied up on Vaccinations.

Ultimately, I have no say on how you live your lives, what you put in your mouth, or inject into your body.  Those decisions are yours and I respect that. If you are unhealthy, have an illness or are fearful, you should protect yourself. If I die because of my decisions, again they are my decisions. I will take reasonable care not to give ANY illness to anyone. I, as a rational human when sick, will stay home as I would and should, with a cold or flu or Ebola.

My hope is that decisions we make, start containing more common sense, like stay home if you are SICK – we all did that back in the day?  Work will carry on without you if you are SICK.  Keeping our children home when they are SICK. Perhaps businesses have actually learned from the ‘Rona and will be more generous with sick time for employees.

If you speak about having the ‘Rona or those who have survived, it is not disrespectful to those who did not survive. We are all devastated, as we should be, with any illness that takes a life too soon.  We don’t need to add ‘survivors’ guilt’ to the list of things we’re all dealing with. 

With all the sadness, loss and mental stress we’ve experienced this year, let’s NOT live in fear created by others. Let’s NOT shame or judge our family, friends and neighbors.  And let’s pray that the overall well-being of this nation improves after so many health issues have come to light during the ‘Rona.

Grateful for you and my antibodies,   

Sheree