Covid-19: a tragedy and a blessing, a silent viral revolution and a spiritual wake up call. My thoughts on this historic pandemic.
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Namaste, Corona! I don’t shake hands or hug anymore.
Who are you? Where are you coming from and what are you up to?
You are microscopic. No one can see you, and yet you are very present and occupying lots of space, spreading around on our physical bodies, as well as filling newspapers, podcasts or news broadcast, keeping our hospitals full, having shelves in the supermarkets empty and our minds concerned, while you travel the world.
At times, I want to shout at you: fuck off!
I am a bit scared when thinking of you, because I think of the growing numbers of deaths and severely sick to whom you contribute. I don’t want our health care systems to collapse. You make me worry about the health of my parents and of friends with a weak immune system. You make the risk of losing them more tangible to me. And I know you cause identical worries in others. I want to dislike you and discredit you for bringing this kind of suffering and pain to all of us.
People are losing their jobs and their income. It feels like a rug is being pulled from under our feet. At times, I want to shout at you: fuck off! when I feel tired of being at home and I am most longing for just going out normally again and have a chat with someone in a café, to go to work, to attend to my yoga class. You have taken away my mobility and the freedom to do what I want to do. I feel insecure and would love to be hugged and cuddled – it feels I need it more than ever before. I want to get rid of this feeling of being exposed and vulnerable and of that uncertainty. But actually I and all other mates of the human race have been vulnerable every day, we have lived with uncertainty in every moment and we have been exposed to higher forces ever since. Just that we knew all too well how to distract us and to not think about it too much. Now, here you come and take the distraction away from us and make all of what is and all of what has always been, i.e. our vulnerability and all the things we cannot control, far more tangible.
You are said to look like a crown under the microscope
You take our common entertainments away. Cafés, shops, theatres, museums, concert halls, playgrounds and so on are closed, travel is forbidden. Most people nowadays stay at home – not the heroes and heroines of our communities though: doctors, nurses, grocery store staff etc., who bring in all their knowledge, strength, courage and love – for all of us.
Even though I’d love to: I can’t shout at you and push you away, Corona. You’ve been given your name, because you are said to look like a crown under the microscope. And yes, you’ve made your way in a sort of royal and unstoppable manner around the globe. Even though you remain invisible to my eyes, you are utterly powerful and make me feel small and humble. And I don’t care whether you simply mutated your way from bats or other animals into our human bodies, hopping over on a market in China, or whether you have been bred by people and are part of a conspiration – there will always be wild theories circulating around. I know though, that astrological charts have foreseen a huge and long-lasting shift and transformation for 2020 – and it seems it is manifesting itself by you and through you.
Most of us have understood by now that we can’t stop you. So, I want to accept and embrace you, Corona, because the more I think about you, the more I get the feeling you are here to teach us great cosmic lessons. How people take these lessons may vary from person to person. A sure thing is, however, there is no way around you, no way to escape from you. We need to deal with you and with your presence and with all the changes you bring to us. So, I have decided to move into a place of calm and acceptance – though sometimes I still wonder if I am not just dreaming, as this new reality and atmosphere is so surreal.
I envision people dancing and celebrating together and hugging each other as it happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
I feel for all the people who have fallen sick or lost beloved ones or who suffer in any other way as a consequence of your roaming around. And I, as a free spirit, as someone who has travelled and lived in several countries until now, am looking forward to the moment when all borders are open again. And I certainly can’t wait till I finally can hug all my friends and family members again. I may even feel like hugging any random stranger, once we are released again – and I envision people dancing and celebrating together and hugging each other as it happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
It might look like a strange thing to thank a virus
We are social beings and we all need connection and physical touch. But in this time, temporarily, it is in our own and everyone else’s best interest to leave closeness out of the equation. Despite all, Corona, I want to choose to see you through a prism of gratitude, even though it might look like a strange thing to thank a virus.
There will not be a way of getting fully back to normal – to all that we have been used to. And instead of resisting this, I thank you for that.
For the fact that you are bringing not just suffering and anxiety, but actually healing and also teaching us a great lesson.
Rich or poor? President or farmer? Hindu, moslem or atheist? Black or white? Man, woman or transgender? You don’t care
Thank you for showing us humans that the seemingly impossible is actually possible. That we can live without so much of what we have been utterly attached to.
Thank you for showing us that mankind is able to choose health and the collective wellbeing over individualism, profit and consumerism. We only needed a danger menacing our existence to make us shift our priorities.
Thank you for showing us that we can reduce the CO2 emissions drastically in no time.
Thank your for showing all of us the need to create a fairer and more sustainable economic system.
Thank you for passing all national borders and for not making any distinctions regarding nationality, sex, gender, religion, age and class or status, when it comes to attacking human race. Rich or poor? President or farmer? Hindu, moslem or atheist? Black or white? Man, woman or transgender? You don’t care. And only by this radical way of spreading without distinguishing between our self-set separation – you teach us what we all have always known, but that most of us have forgotten: that we are one. Coming from and connected to the same source of life. As highly interdependent beings, what one single person does on this planet does have repercussions and spreads out ripples that do have an effect on anyone else in one way or another.
Thank you for making it tangible for us that we leave a footprint – even if an invisible one like a virus – by everything we do, by moving around and touching things, or even by simply breathing. The breath connects our body and mind and it connects ourselves with our surroundings and with others, as they potentially inhale and exhale the same air.
What is going on in the war zones in this world these days...!?
Thank you for taking the focus away from war and all other self-made problems based on our sense of separation. Imagine: Soldiers staying home, because of Corona. But, hmmm... wait a second. What is going on in the war zones in this world these days...!?
Thank you for causing us to provide each other with free public transport and other community support, such as access to online media of libraries and alike.
Thank you for providing us with time to do the deep cleaning of our home and for many other things that we wanted to do since quite some time.
Thank you for providing us with the chance to demonstrate solidarity with everyone on this planet, by staying at home, by helping neighbours in need and doing the shopping or alike, with balcony flashmobs applauding to all the people working in the health care system, who are working hard and doing their best to help and sustain the whole community.
Greeting each other from afar or smiling has never been this powerful
Thank you for the warm smiles and at times flirty winks in the faces of people passing by on the street. We can’t come close or hug, but we are more friendly to each other now. We are in this together/ It is not easy, but let’s make the most out of it – this is what is written in our faces. Greeting each other from afar or smiling has never been this powerful.
Thanks for the chance to understand in these times of no physical (or very little) contact with friends and family that our urge for connecting is prevalent. Therefore, we naturally begin now to see the humans in our direct surroundings and begin interacting with them (from a distance).
Thank you for helping us coming closer collectively on a mental and heart level, even though we are physically more distanced temporarily. For proving the existence of spiritual connection, by making us feel the invisible threads while the visible, physical and often more superficial contact is fading away.
Learn to be in the here and now, in the here and now, and nothing but the here and now
Thanks for taking our focus from the outside into the inside and into the beauty of what is directly surrounding us: the birds that are singing, the sun that is shining, the smile of a neighbour on the balcony, the air we breathe ...
Thank you for forcing us to learn to be in the here and now, in the here and now, and nothing but the here and now. And to have us asking: What is going on with us? Where are we at? What do we want to keep or to change in life?
Thank you for teaching us how to be creative and find solutions to get our needs met in different ways, for example, by connecting with others or working online, by doing new activities at home that we wouldn’t have done otherwise.
Thank you for all the people out there spreading good vibes or offering help or mental support, via social media or personally from a distance.
Thank you for the humour that remains alive in people and helps us on dealing with a crisis like this one… all together.
Asking ourselves the question with whom or where we would like to be quarantined...
Thank you for strengthening the community spirit everywhere.
Thank you for forcing us to learn to surrender and to accept that we cannot control everything.
Thank you for allowing us to be even more grateful for our health and the health of our beloved ones.
Thank you for making us aware that reducing our consumption of meat or vegetarianism instead of being fashionable actually is a necessity.
Thank you for having us face and learn how to deal with our fears and how to be compassionate.
Thank you for helping us finding our truth. Just by asking ourselves the question with whom or where we would like to be quarantined or not, we can learn a lot about ourselves and about our relationships.
Thank you for showing us that there is so much more than profit.
Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to find out, what we really want at heart.
Thank you for emphasising the importance of everyone working in the health care system and in the grocery stores. Normally not paid well, these people are keeping it all together now and helping our communities to continue to exist and function.
We only know that we know nothing. We get Socrates’ lesson as a collective
We don’t know yet how long it will take us to flatten the curve of new infections and deaths and for how long it is necessary for us to stand still and stay at home. We don’t know yet how strong our health care systems really are and whether our economic structures will and can remain exactly the same, once the virus is a bit more contained. We only know that we know nothing. We get Socrates’ lesson as a collective. Uncertainty is the most certain and tangible thing in this moment. And I know that there are also wild theories on the scenarios to occur when this fight for saving lives in hospitals and the quarantine at home is over for all of us.
Some are driven by fear and imagining dystopias, believing there will be poverty and wars, the establishment of totalitarian systems all over. Others create utopias and hope everything turns out to be peace and love when this is over. I’m not feeling inclined towards any of these scenarios, because they are both extreme and unrealistic in my view. I know there will be profound changes in the collective psyche and a shift in consciousness. This does not mean, though, that all will automatically turn out to be an easy game and that egocentric ways will cease to exist.
This shift can powerfully help us reset ourselves and the perception of us humans as a global community
As we are vulnerable as a collective, all together simultaneously – and this is unique and historic – the power of the love medicine has come to the peak of its potential to unfold and to bring positive transformations. If we collectively feel that we are the same in our fear and insecurity and if we collectively can show compassion towards everyone on this globe to help ourselves and others at the same time to get through this – we come to a deeper understanding and to an embodied practice of connection with people, animals and our environment. This shift can powerfully unite all of us and help us reset ourselves and the perception of us humans as a global community.
Seen from a medical or economic perspective, you, Corona, mean tragedy, loss, chaos and confusion. Zooming out to see the bigger picture and looking at you from an environmentalist or spiritual perspective you bring awakening, clarity and healing along with you. Thank you for your silent viral revolution!