Dreaming, weaving and embodying a whole new web of life in the age of Covid-19 amid sweeping social, economic, and political transformation
For context, please read the previous post in this series.
Continuing on with my personal story, ending up in the hospital for sixteen days six years ago with a severe case of pneumonia that required breaking a rib to get out all of the infection and required an operation to implant three stents in my heart, and then adding that to my most recent experience this Spring, finally has forced me to see that my heart was breaking and that I was grieving, all because I wasn’t listening to myself. I was not being true to myself. No matter how “noble” the work was that I was doing and no matter what the number of people was that I was able to serve in my spiritual work over the years, I simply was not being true to myself. Thus, I did not love myself. So, what was the point of it?
This is not a metaphor for me. This is what I actually experienced. And it’s certainly on all levels what Covid-19 and all the social, political, and economic upheaval that has arisen on the global level is all about. Many hearts are breaking and copious tears of grief are pouring out. It’s interesting to see that the impulse many are having is to get back to “normal” as soon as possible—i.e., get the economy rolling again, go on vacations, get to the mall, and basically just sweep all our personal and collective cobwebs and shadows under a rug.
Yeah! Well, that kind of an approach of going back to the old normal didn’t work for me six years ago, so I know it won’t work again for me nor for you nor for us collectively. We’ve all had many wake-up calls in our lives and so has civilization in general. This time, though, we have no way out but to go with-in. We must come to “know” and love ourselves and each other and act accordingly. Nothing will or can be the same again. We are at a major evolutionary turning point.
So, I could go on and on about my “stuff” and how it relates to the macro level, but I don’t need to. I know you get it.
I would just like to humbly encourage you not to run away from the uncomfortable feelings and thoughts you have about your life, but instead lovingly and deeply explore them. Don’t run away from the challenging choices you will have to make going forward; embrace them fully. And, please don’t tell yourself that you’ve got your act totally together and my “story” is not yours. There is no time for that! At least to some degree we all have a similar story. We are all here to learn and grow. None of us has our “act” totally together. Please, I figured that out about myself and others when I was in my teens.
Tell the truth to yourself and to others with love, but remember that you can never speak your truth until you hear it yourself. Know ThySelf.
So, let the light shine on your shadows and let it fully awaken the sun within you. Up to now, collectively and personally, we have been stuck in a freeze-frame, a Bill Murray “Groundhog Day” movie rerun. I suggest we drop the facades, see what is really there, get newly inspired, weave/dream a new vision, lay a new foundation, birth the new human, and build a new, sustainable, inclusive, loving world.
Besides all the shadows that the coronavirus is bringing up within us personally, so, too, our inability and unwillingness to look at the massive injustices that have been perpetrated on human beings because of their “otherness:” skin color, gender, culture, etc., must finally be healed. Otherwise our collective shadows will ensnare, bury, and destroy us in a web of deadly dystopia.
We must let the light within us emerge. We are in an e-merge-ncy.
