I need to be silent a while, worlds are forming in my heart.
— M. Eckart
From an Eastern perspective, a virus is generally considered Wind Cold. Thus the nature of what is happening now is more than revealing, it is asking something of us. Wind is an invitation to CHANGE. Cold is an invitation to SLOW DOWN. Seen from this perspective, this virus heralds a sort of devotional compassion for humans, bidding us to consider just how precious life is and to slow down, reflect and change to grow. The appearance of this virus has us learning our limitations, re-considering what is truly of value, creating meaningful connections with those we thought we had nothing in common with, respecting boundaries, deeply understanding the cost of inequity, celebrating each other as families, communities, cities, states and countries, imagining holistic solutions to complicated problems, and exposing those that prey on division, exploitation and opportunistic monetization. In this time of stop, we’ve been given a glimpse of unbidden clarity which is also the very thing that makes this time divine.
If you are someone who was unpleasantly surprised or unnerved to be “living in this uncertain time,” welcome to the precipice of what it actually means to be human. The fact is, all time is uncertain and therefore precious. If you are one of millions who have lost livelihood or have been self quarantining or sheltering at home or have been working on the front lines or supporting those quarantining or volunteering at food banks or learning new ways to teach and learn and be with your families or mercifully understanding something about what it means to be dying and any other of the myriad ways this time has shown you your limitations, welcome! Such hard learning in real time gives us a deeper understanding of our limits. And this is precisely what makes us human. After all, “inhumane” is a word that we use to describe that which lies beyond human-ness. Time itself is enduring, our individual time on this earth is not.
Let’s wonder further. Let’s consider that we are living in a time not of uncertainty but of consequence. The ways we have been conducting ourselves up to this point are observable and knowable as are the assumptions which underlie them. That is, we are living in a time that is faithfully consistent with the facts about the standards to which we’ve conformed and the limitations we have respected or trespassed. One need not look further than the world’s improved air quality or the fish and dolphins returning to the canals of Venice to see the consequence of human relationship to the planet. There is no real question as to what Mother Nature’s vote would be about humans continuing. The relative increase in the death toll of our country’s marginalized, forgotten, elderly, exploited and taken for granted exposes how inequitable, divisive and unstable relationships are when they occur between “us” and “them” or at the expense of “them” for “us.”
Our capacity to serve the greater good by washing our hands, social distancing and staying at home simultaneously reacquaints us with ourselves and respects each other in a magnificent manner. Some of us are finding out for the first time that our behaviors and assumptions have been ill considered at best or not considered at all at worst. There are those that would have us all ‘just get past this” and have the world go on as “it did before”, virus deaths be damned for the sake of letting the money making machinery continue in its inequitable and until now, largely unquestioned fashion. And there are a some that understand that there is no going back to “what it was”, but rather taking on board the lessons to be learned from this rare time, and moving forward, imagining new ways of being and behaving differently and appropriately according to this time. There are many of us who are growing and changing perhaps in ways we didn’t know we needed and slowing down enough to enjoy the blessings of the ordinary in every day living, at least if the sourdough bread making craze is any indication. Growing and greying tresses challenge ideas of beauty and puts aging in appropriate perspective. Fitness becomes properly understood not as a goal but as a way to appreciate our capacity for wellness rather than an antidote to the fear of illness.
This time is difficult as all change is. Relationships thrive or break apart, challenges are everywhere. Change is an extraordinary process of sometimes hard learning, breaking down, letting go, loving bigger. And this, stew of the fermentation process that is change is ultimately is how beauty is made.
So as we slow down and live according to what we actually need to thrive as individuals, families and communities let us respond with the clarity and courage of our convictions and make the world a more beautiful place.