Help Galen and Jahnavi in their recovery from long covid

Hi Everyone, we are Galen and Jahnavi, we’re self-employed musicians and artists.

We offer our music and space-holding in many ways:

We make music that speaks to deep love of the living earth, and of the joy and grief of being human;

We host an open mic where people are able to share their music, poetry, and art, and often collaborate and improvise with each other;

In work with individuals, we support people in sharing their voices and stepping into their gifts;

Together, we are committed to what we sometimes describe as a bardic path, and seek to build community in all that we do.

Over the years to make ends meet we have offered our skilled hands tending people's gardens, yards and orchards. This was our main work before we met and started playing music together. With the pandemic, we fell back on this again as a reliable source of income.

What we need/what happened:

We’ve been either actively sick or very slowly recovering for over 3 months this year. This means we've lost over 3 months of work and still haven't been able to recover our health or financial stability, due to long covid.

We are asking for help so we can afford food and medicine, pay bills we’re behind on, and actually be able to take time to recover. This would help us get back on our feet, and restructure our offerings of music, art and facilitation to be more resilient moving forward.

We know there are many people and communities all over the world going through unimaginable catastrophes who need financial support, which makes asking for help even harder. We haven't wanted to distract from this, and have done what we can to uplift and support many of these efforts. We know that we are relatively okay compared to millions of people right now.

And yet, we are still struggling a lot and want to be well-resourced enough so that we can continue to be of the greatest service to the world in these wildly uncertain and challenging times.

If it is within your means and willingness, we are grateful to accept what you are able and glad to contribute.

We are starting this GoFundMe at $5,500, which would cover basic expenses for a couple of months as we get back on our feet, and a couple of other essentials:

-rent for two months

-food

-bills/debts

-medicines we need for our recovery

-some work with herbal medicine practitioners

-gas

-basic items to protect our house and cars: (primarily fixing our trucks so they don’t leak and cause mold)

This amount also takes into account the transaction fees that are taken out from GoFundMe.

If we were to receive this much, we could transition towards work that is easier on our bodies and in service to our gifts. There are many things we want to offer, and ways we would like to be useful to the world; with the constant pressure of trying to make up for months of sickness while totally exhausted, we have not been able to pivot back towards these offerings fully.

We are working on a plan for once we get back on our feet to hopefully be more sustained by our other offerings.

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To give a bit more context, here is more of the story of how we got here and why we are asking for help right now. (If you already know what we have been going through, feel free to skip this section.)

The first time we got sick was early this Spring. We were both in bed for a week and lost multiple weeks of work while we were recovering.

At the end of July, we both got Covid and were sick for over a week. Since then, we've been struggling tremendously with extreme fatigue, brain fog and cognitive issues - what many would call long covid.

This all came on top of navigating chronic pain and injuries the last few years, which had already dramatically changed what we could do within our landscaping work, and how often.

The work that was barely sustaining us before became simply impossible. After our initial recovery from Covid, we tried to do a day of yard work and were so fatigued we couldn't continue.

For the first month or so, we'd wake up, and after doing a few basic morning tasks, already feel like we were going to pass out. Since getting covid, we have often not been able to afford enough food to nourish ourselves well and recover fully.

We have both lived on very little income for years and are used to a certain level of that, but this time has been really scary.

A few weeks into these long covid symptoms, we got sick again with something else, as our immune systems were weakened.

We've been recovering slowly, and our energy is starting to improve bit by bit, but it has felt nearly impossible to catch up.

The bills keep stacking up, and bigger projects are falling further and further behind.

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We deeply appreciate any and all support - whether that's contributing to or sharing this campaign, interest in our offerings, sharing our music, and/or just sending your good thoughts.

We promise, in receiving more, to also give more, in integrity with our capacities, but fully diving in with our hearts.

The more we are held, the more we can hold and share and help, and the more we can bring our hearts’ gifts into the world, and support others in doing the same.

If you wish to support us and our music more continuously, you can do so on our Patreons: Galen's Patreon and Jahnavi's Patreon

You can also listen, purchase, follow and support our music here:

Galen's Bandcamp - Jahnavi's Bandcamp - Galen's YouTube - Jahnavi's YouTube - Jahnavi Veronica on Spotify - Galen's Website - Jahnavi's Website - For The Living Earth

with love and gratitude,

and a continuous prayer for the flourishing of the living Earth and all our kin,

may we all move ever towards a life of mutual thriving,

Jahnavi Veronica and Galen Hefferman