- Is Writing Good Medicine?
-
FREE
e-course: A Sample of Life Writing for Transformation™
- Sri Lankan 55+ Group 'ZOOM' together
-
When it Hit Me - Corona Virus Pandemic
COVID-19
Stories
in and around Winnipeg, Manitoba
To share your personal experiences with the corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic, send us an email at kelly_goodman@shaw.ca.
Is Writing Good Medicine? The Best.
Recently on the Heartspace
Transformative Writers Facebook Group, this statement appeared, “Is
Writing Good Medicine? The Best.”
Everyone was encouraged to, “Go
ahead, pick up your pen. Write a letter about what this time in your life
is like for you.”
I was inspired to write. . .
© Eleanor
Chornoboy, Winnipeg April 23, 2020
This is an unusual time for me as it is for everyone around the world,
except maybe for hermits and monks who have self-isolated for years and
decades.
It has been hard
for me to absorb what is going on. Cerebrally I get what is going on,
but emotionally I think I am distancing. My writing has only mentioned
the Covid-19 pandemic, but it has not penetrated into my belly to search
for the deeper meaning and impact upon me or the world.
I have not feared
for my parents’ health like many whose parents live in care homes.
However, I have often said “thanks” that my mother met with
her creator several months ago. She was spared the isolation and she had
her family by her side when she left this world for a place that she believed
with her whole being, to be wondrous.
I have been healthy
and I have the resources to donate supplies to organizations who distribute
those necessary items according to need. I have kept busy doing menial
tasks and I can’t seem to settle just to sit and read. I know the
economy is tanking, but we’re all in this together.
It reminds me of
when I was a little girl and lived on a farm. Some people may have considered
us poor. We did not have plumbing; we did not have sliced bread from the
store; many of our clothes were hand-me-downs; our house was old and allowed
the winter chill to enter through cracks in the doors that Mom stuffed
with rags, but we always had enough to eat. We were always safe and everyone
in the district was like us.
We were all in this together.
This has been a time to reflect — yes, I can do that as I clean out
drawers or go for a walk with my husband Larry. I remind myself to be
grateful for all the gifts around me; to see and appreciate the beauty
in the little things surrounding me and try to give a part of me to those
I love by writing and sending notes by snail mail.
Upon
further reflection, maybe the impact of this pandemic upon me, is greater
than I think. My answer to the question,“Is Writing Good Medicine?”
Is yes, I agree. It’s “The Best.”
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A Sample of Life Writing for Transformation™
Experience the benefits
of reflective writing, an empowering stress management practice that guides
you to gently examine life experiences with mindful awareness.
This free self-paced
mini course provides one full session of a larger 6-week program. In this
“sample” you’ll learn the basic steps to get started –
in just five minutes.
Using videos, a workbook, examples, audio recordings, and step-by-step
exercises, you’ll soon be using reflective writing with ease and
confidence.
Facilitators/Tutors
for this course are Joanne Klassen and Eleanor Chornoboy.
They have introduced thousands of writers of all ages, around the world
to Life Writing for Transformation™, a process of life-enriching
personal development and creative self expression.
“A
life-changing gift of insight I gave myself.”
Roseanne Keyes, retired school principal
•
To register, email: learning@woodbrooke.org.uk
• Mention the Free Sample of the Life Writing Course
• Include your first and last name, your city and country
• You will be asked to login with a password when you begin
Sri
Lankan Seniors kept busy with Yoga and monthly get together by using Zoom
technology
Senaka
A. Samarasinghe
Winnipeg
April 23rd (THU) 2020
The Committee Members of Sri Lankan seniors called number of Committee Meetings (via Zoom). Firstly, finalized weekly Yoga sessions conducted in collaboration with Trinity United Church (TUC).
Yoga
instructor Wynn Ferguson of TUC started Yoga (free-of-charge) on April
6th Monday from 3.00-4.00 pm with ten participants. Wynn planned to conduct
Yoga on Mondays on the above time. There were two groups of participants
namely South Side Community Fitness and Fellowship and Sri Lankan 55+
Group. On April 13th there were 15 members and it was increased up to
30 participants in third week (April 20th).
Secondly, in April 21th Tuesday Sri Lankan 55+ Group arranged a “trial Get together” via Zoom. It started at 9.30 am and successfully carried-on till 12.00 noon. Two members were out of the City of Winnipeg such as in Sri Lanka and Medicine Hat (Province of Alberta). These two also joined with us actively.
With the above experience the Committee of Sri Lankan seniors are now planning to perform this type of virtual gatherings frequently to educate seniors to provide medical instructions to prevent Coronavirus Pandemic. Happy to note Sri Lankan medical practitioners in Winnipeg conveyed their willingness to help. Seniors are the most vulnerable age-group for this pandemic. It is therefore important to provide medical instructions via Zoom.
As most
of our seniors are not conversant of using computers they are unable to
reach zoom meetings. Luckily, managed to obtain services from young volunteers
to help seniors those who need help to enter these virtual meetings.
WHEN IT HIT ME
— The seriousness of the Corona Virus Pandemic
Compiled by Joanne Klassen
Joanne
Klassen, founder of Heartspace, home of Transformative Life Writing, is
the author of Tools of Transformation and many other books. Heartspace
classes are popular in Canada and Europe. For information on Transformative
Life Writing classes, please visit the Heartspace website:
www.write-away.net
or contact Joanne Klassen at:
jklassen@write-away.net
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Joanne Klassen,
in Kihei, Maui Hawaii, on vacation
Friday, March 13, 2020
Ted & Joanne Klassen
When
I heard on the evening news on T.V. that Disneyland and Disney World were
closing on the eve of Spring Break, the busiest time of their year, the
seriousness and the closeness of the pandemic registered for me.
Later
in the same week we were at the grocery store and I saw a sign limiting
toilet tissue to two packages and hand sanitizer to one. I wondered why.
We came back the next day the shelves were empty. The following day at
a large Safeway store in Kahului, we looked for toilet paper and saw two
packages on the shelf. As we approached, another woman picked up both.
I asked, “Could we share? One each?” She took both and spun her cart around the corner of the aisle at high speed. It became more personal at that moment.
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Amina
Kasfa,
in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada
Sunday, March 22, 2020
It
became real for me when I was grocery shopping for me and my mom on Friday,
March 20. My eight year old daughter Jasmine and I had come from an eye
appointment and were at our usual Superstore on Gateway. For days paper
products, like toilet paper, tissues and paper towels, and hand sanitizer
had been sold out and produce and meat were in short supply, but what
I saw shocked me.
We
saw people pushing one over-loaded shopping cart and pulling another.
The shelves were bare—no oil, flour, rice, pasta. It looked like
they thought it was the end of the world. I have five children at home
and there was nothing to prepare a meal from. The bread shelf was empty.
When I stood back, I noticed a lone pack of hotdog buns almost over the
top of the shelf. I lifted my daughter Jasmine up as high as I could.
She was able to grab a corner of the buns.
At
that moment the gravity of the situation hit me.
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D’Arcy
Bruning-Haid
Winnipeg Manitoba
March 22, 2020
A
moment of decision was when our son Misha wanted to go to badminton and
we said no. Then my husband Dieter and I decided that it would be best
if we discontinued our visits to our favourite new gym. We invited our
son Gino’s girlfriend to move in. That was the evening that we decided
that we would hunker down and be within the walls of our home together
for the duration.
A
few days ago I went to the Co-op Grocery to buy food and all the pasta,
sauces, canned and frozen vegetables were gone. It was a whole new level
of realization of the changes that were underway. Dieter and I both began
to stock up, realizing that this may be a longer-term situation than any
of us imagined.
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Dieter
Bruning-Haid
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Sunday March 22, 2020
For
me it was going into Starbucks on Taylor Ave. for a coffee and seeing
that all the tables were pushed over to one side and cordoned off. The
only coffee service was at the counter. In that moment I realized that
things had changed in a significant way and that our routines would all
be interrupted. That was on Friday, on Saturday I noticed that the door
was locked at Starbucks and only drive-through coffee was available. Now
the Starbucks is closed.
After
D’Arcy’s experience at the grocery store, we began to stock
up.
Here’s a photo of our pantry today. We are prepared.
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Heather
Emberley, writer, and the person who brought Little Libraries to Winnipeg
with a library box on her front lawn on Dorchester Ave., Wpg
Monday, March 23, 2020
It
became really real for me when I heard from other Little Free Library
Stewards in Canada that perhaps we should shut down our little library.
What was to be an alternative to the public library’s closing is
also disappearing from life as we knew it.
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Ted
Klassen, had travelled to Hawaii
March 22, 2020
When we got home from our trip, I had just finished doing the laundry from our vacation, using the washer and dryer down the hall in our condo. I walked into our home and shut the door. It registered then that I would not be walking out that door again for 14 days.
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Steve
Goossen, Winnipeg
March 11, 2020
When
the NHL and the NBA announced that games would stop. They don’t do
that, this is big. And almost instantly no Jets to follow.
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Krista
Goossen
Saturday March 14, 2020
For
me it was our last weekly Saturday breakfast date at the Promenade restaurant
when we said to our waitress, “We don’t know if we’ll be
coming next week...”. We started to say if we weren’t we’d
call.
She
said that we didn’t have to. “We will know,” she said,
“We’ll all know.”
And later I realized that even though schools would be shut down we wouldn’t be seeing our dear little girls. So thank goodness for video chats.
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