To some extent, we are all feeling this.
Grief is mounting and begging to be felt, expressed, roared, wailed, moved with…sung out…given space and respect and an ear of deep listening.
Are you at risk of sliding into a deep hole that you might call depression or anxiety? Are you desperately trying to fill your days with something…some kind of “entertainment”? Are you scrambling to avoid feeling all that is here to be felt?
Is your mind swirling??? Trying to think of solutions to a story that is not yet written?? Remember this acronym for FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real. Is the fearing mind sweltering with stress??…hampering your immune system and circling and circling rather than sinking into a calming well of acceptance that COULD lead to possibility?
What if this were a time of opportunity?
What if this time of sheltering in place could be an incredibly rich space for you? Especially if you are not working and not caring for children or others in your home space. Could you actually claim this time out of time, as a time for you? No I’m not talking about time for you for reading books or binging on Netflix but what if you surrendered to the invitation to slide down into the fertile abyss?…allowed the pull of the dark underworld to have its way with you?…what if you trusted that this period of time that is mandated is not a prison sentence, but instead a trembling, shimmering pause in what we’ve built as “normal life” and that it is FOR us?
What if the Covid 19 virus, comes as a teacher, a guide, a psychopomp, beckoning with long dark fingers, for you to let go and let the gravitational pull of the underworld have you?
This could be an immense gift for your soul.
Haven’t so many of us wished for a pause in the crazy lives we’ve built in order to sink deeply enough into ourselves to actually catch a glimpse of that glimmering gorgeous genius of ourselves?
What if this is it?
This is, undoubtedly, a collective underworld journey.
In times past, when the people still lived vibrant in their unrelinquished bond with Earth and her beings, when the chief or medicine person saw that their people were in trouble, they knew it was time to take time out from their regular life and quite literally, return to the Earth and cry for a vision.
I don’t think any of us can argue that we are in trouble.
And many of you know that allowing our cries to be expressed is actually therapeutic. Not only that, but I’m quite intrigued with the fact that in so many healing traditions we understand that the lungs are connected with the grief we hold.
The rainforests are considered the lungs of the Earth, and we all know they have been burning rampantly in the past year..blistered now, bereft of their verdant medicine storehouse and laying raped and open to fierce erosion and human infiltration.
Covid 19 attacks the lungs and respiratory system.
Draw your own conclusions here, my friends.
We are not separate from Earth and the destruction we wage upon Her.
Crying for a vision during this time may be fruitful on many levels.
Allowing the Gods of the underworld to ‘kneed you as if to change your shape’ for a while, may be a profoundly gorgeous way to use this time.
Do not waste this time.
When we turn to actually face our own mortality, something profound becomes available to us.
Essential questions are placed before us.
“Die before you die”, is a wise suggestion offered in many spiritual traditions. The value inherent in spending time dying to who we have been, and the ways that we have been that, is immense.
This is a solitary task…one we must do without other humans present.
Doesn’t this time cry for this? Aren’t we ripe for it?
It is not just Covid-19 that is ushering us to this portal, things have just become personal and urgent enough that we are finally listening.
Climate change has, for years been an even more drastic demand for us to stop and look and change our ways, but it took having our mortality banging on our own doors and with imminence, for us to listen.
Are you listening yet in a way that has you knowing that YOU have a place here and you DO have purpose here?
I pray you are.
One window of beauty that I’m seeing tucked quietly into the torrent of fear-laden news, is the peek at what is already happening with Earth and sky and the animal and plant world as a result of the pause in our mindless rushing in “business as usual”.
There are places around the world where people have not had the great blessing of seeing the stars for many years due to smog. Now we are hearing that in some places people can once again glimpse the stars, since the industrial world stopped its spewing engines for a bit. And in the canals of Europe where boat traffic was halted, where in such a short time the waters were becoming clear, fish and dolphins are seen in them again, and we see that the earth’s resilience is again being recognized as a force to be reckoned with.
Years ago our wise elder, Joanna Macy, who gave her life over to activism in favor of our beloved planet and life sustaining practices, coined the phrase “The Great Turning”. It was a vision for a future beyond the destructive Industrial Growth Society which started 200 years ago. She knew that the only way to get to The Great Turning, sometimes called the Environmental Revolution, was that “business as usual” had to come to a screeching halt. We need a Life-Sustaining Society and until things fall from the old way, we likely won’t see how dire the circumstance and needs are for this. The Industrial Growth Society is a political economy. Who of us cannot see how much we need change here? It is driven by profit and it is doomed as a living system. Joanna says it is seeking to maximize only one part of the system and it is now completely out of wack..there is no balance and so, no sustainability.
Well “business as usual” is now clearly grinding to a stop. This is a good sign if we widen our perspective enough to imagine one possible unfolding story.
So friends, history and traditions from many land based people remind us of the wisdom of returning to Earth in times of trouble, of returning to a different state of mind, of returning to a period of time of going without in order to bring focus to our truest purpose and soul self.
WE ARE most definitely IN TROUBLE.
All the cards are thrown into the air.
This moment is so much bigger than the pandemic of coronavirus…it is a pandemic of climate and environmental systems collapse,…and it is a virus of lost vision and a collective amnesia for how to be a stand for balance, health, kindness and equanimity with all life.
Death has winged in through the dark of night to demand we stop our foolish, myopic ways and is demanding that we hear the call to drop down and to look with keen eyes at the truth of our ways.
This is NOT just about getting through this corona virus.
For there will be more.
I want to trust that it is in our nature as humans to be wise, to be kind, to trust in the guidance of the natural systems of Earth and to follow her lead.
She is throwing so much at us right now…railing at us to wake up….demanding that we stop our foolishness and see where we are right now.
We NEED EVERY ONE OF US TO take this quite seriously, and I’m not just talking about social distancing and hand washing.
Treat this as a global mandate for vision quest time.
The underworld is a demanding and frightening cauldron and it WILL cook you.
If we each can go through this with our eyes to the horizon and our hands open to allow the kind of surrender that is absolutely essential in a quest….letting go of ALL that we thought was important, we might just be lucky enough to REALLY see ourselves and begin to heal and mature ourselves so that we can awaken to our truest purpose.
When was there ever a more critical call for us to come together for purpose? In alliance with our Mother Home, to remake our natural/cultural/community and family systems in partnership with one another and all of the ‘more than human beings’ that we share this planet with.
Maybe Covid-19 is here On Purpose.
Do not waste this chance to be dismembered in all the right ways during this time. There are guides that can help you.
We MUST Re-Member ourSelves as souls born on a planet of beauty and natural wealth, with an intelligence so rampant that we are on the verge of extinguishing.
Say yes to this downward plunge and do it with consciousness in honor of your own soul and this planet we call home.
Put down the book. Turn off the computer. Step away from your plentiful meal, the alcohol, the pills. We are a privileged bunch who have the opportunity to do this if we dare. It will not be easy but it may say your life and the lives of so many other innocent beings.
Dive deep, listen wide, pray often, dream keenly, cry loudly,
We are made for these times.