Be Aware: Learning Curve Ahead!
Quarantining. Social distancing. Zoom. Facemasks. Sheltering in place. Daily mortality and morbidity reports. If you’d told me in January that these words would become our common language, I would’ve thought I had stepped into an alternate universe. Time slips and slides. Every day requires some sort of adjustment, either to habits or to our ability to be patient, to name a few. Do the best you can with what you got.
At The Elderberry we’ve been busy re-creating a business model that will allow us to continue to serve the community, protect our employees and the public, encourage connection with others, and generate income. At times, these all seem to be competing ideals, with a constant rearranging of priorities based on the day and the current needs. We’ve been thinking about offering our classes in an online format for a while so this has pushed us to take the leap and do it. As a result, our Medicine Maker series (starting tomorrow! ) is being presented via Zoom . I miss the physical one-on-one interaction. However, we’ll be able to have more participants in our classes since we’re not restricted by physical space and I can incorporate more of my home garden into the classes. The learning curve for using Zoom and the new gizmos on the cell phone to promote better sound and lighting, to thinking through how to do a class series on Zoom to helping people feel connected to each other and to the topic: every day’s a new challenge.
We’ve increased our inventory of extracts exhibiting antibacterial, antiviral and antianxiety components in addition to those that focus on the respiratory system. We’re experimenting with making new teas to help with different types of coughs and the stages of fevers. To think that you’re going to take one herb throughout the whole process of an infection is not how this particular virus works. Similar to tickborne illnesses, this virus seems to frequently change its presentation requiring one to keep up with the energetics it’s displaying at the time. For instance, from dampness to dryness and back to dampness again. To chills resolving into heat and back to chills and then back to heat. It’s a tricky little #!@*. Another learning curve.
We’ve rearranged the retail space to enable us to see clients in the store while maintaining physical distance to protect both herbalist and client. In addition to our new sanitation routine, we have a protocol that will require us to do some screening before admitting people into the store (i.e., asking a few questions and taking temperatures). Our goal is to start seeing clients in the store beginning the week of May 10th.
The bottom line is this: we’re here, we’re changing to meet the needs of the time and we look forward to creating a ‘new ‘ normal. Do the best you can with what you have and be the change you want to see in the world!