Some summertime reading

Dear TLN community,

Some of you are already on holiday and some, like me, will be as of the first week of August (back officially around 25th August).

I hope you are all finding ways to unwind and disconnect and to reconnect (albeit safely) with your loved ones.

I'm sure you'll agree that these past few months have been trying times, on both the professional and personal level.

Some of us, including myself, caught Covid-19. To my knowledge there have been no deaths in our community, fortunately. It wasn't severe in my case - much less debilitating than the flu I caught in 2017 - but a bit strange and long, and I was feeling the effects for at least 8 weeks afterwards. The brain fog is only now beginning to subside!

I do apologise for being slower than usual to respond to requests and deal with training admin, in particular. You'll be glad to hear that I'm now catching up. The pile of dossiers is shrinking fast!

For all of us, this has been a time of reflection, of trying to make sense of the events of the past few months and, in particular, of the official narratives which have been setting off alarm bells for many of us! I am always amazed at how accurate my intuition/gut feeling can be when it comes to reading situations!

I recently came across this article (or rather an essay) by Charles Eisenstein. It is a long read - and it does not give any definitive answers (thankfully!) - but it raises a whole load of really pertinent questions that we should be thinking about right now.

I keep going back to it because it is so interesting and I thought it was worth sharing with you all.

I wish you all a restful, restorative summer.

Be sure to take care of your bodies and your minds - and especially your minds because physical well-being can only be maintained if our minds are in the right place! Take a break from "the news"!

For my part, I'm going to the UK to spend 2 weeks with my family, by the sea and where the sea air is perfect for detoxing and boosting immunity.

My parents are at an age where every extra day is a blessing and, as we can expect more lockdowns and restrictions on movement this autumn and winter, I am going to take the opportunity to spend quality time with them now. We are going to be exploring the best strategies for keeping them safe from harm when we head back into virus season this autumn/winter. For example, is the influenza vaccine that the UK government is pushing vigorously going to be the best way forward, bearing in mind that studies are showing that the flu vaccine increases susceptibility to corona-type viruses (common colds as well as Covid-19)? Should we be envisaging that they get vaccinated when the new Covid-19 vaccines appear or not? In any case, we will not be letting the UK government or the UK media make these decisions for us.

Looking forward to reconnecting at the 'rentrée'. I will be checking emails throughout the holiday - and will of course respond to 'emergencies', but could I please ask you to keep anything non-urgent until after 25th August?

And I really hope you enjoy the article!

I also highly recommend Charles Eisensteins website where you can find more of his articles, podcasts and videos.

https://charleseisenstein.org

Warmest regards to you all,

Claire

And here are some other links if you are interested:

The actual statistics for France regarding Covid-19, bearing in mind that it's the death statistics (NOT the number of cases) that are the most significant.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/france?country=~FRA

Independent extra-parliamentary inquiry committee set up to investigate our governments' handling of the Covid-19 pandemic

https://acu2020.org/international/