This evening, my entire neighborhood started howling. Liked caged animals I suppose. The stars were just starting to come out and you could hear the chorus of howls around the valley for miles (mostly people, but the dogs chimed in too). I stood on the wet grass as the sound circled around me and it really sunk in what extraordinary times we are living through right now. Of course, I don't want this to go on forever. I want people to be healthy and be able to work and kids to go to school. But I don't want things to go back to the way they were, both in the big picture and for me personally. Think about it, how much do you want your old life back? With all that has been taken away, we have been given a great gift–the opportunity to imagine a new world.
The Silver-Lining of Destruction
This is the silver-lining of destruction–when a wave of change this large comes through the collective, nothing is the same as it was before. And that's a good thing. That's not to say that there weren't things before that were of value, they were either relevant for the time or are still relevant and will remain through this phase transition. But to return everything to exactly as it was would be anti-evolutionary, just the ever-repeating known. What is interesting is the new, what is exciting is the unknown.
Becoming change-makers
Change really is the only thing that is ever happening. We can be the ones making the change or, in this case, change can be forced upon us. This kind of major destructive event is meant to wake us up to start becoming change-makers. And what needs changing? More than anything, moving from a "me" society to a "we" society, waking up from looking to the world to fill our neediness and shifting to bringing our fulfillment to the needs of the world.
Practice Fearlessness
How do we become the change-makers? First we must acknowledge our fear, then move through it as if it were a passing cloud. Access your inner Being through meditation, that place where there is no 'other' and therefore nothing to fear. From that place of fearlessness, only there can you imagine the new world, whatever reality emerges out of this one. All the pieces have been thrown into the air, both in our lives and in the collective. If you're awake enough, you can help guide them where they aught to fall.
It starts now
My teacher the other night said (in a zoom meeting of course), "create now the memories you want to be having." Someday, people too young to remember this ordeal will be asking you, "wow, you lived through the Great Pandemic of 2020, what was it like?" You have the power to shape your perspective and experience of this time of seismic change. If you can bring your awareness to the moment and accept the reality of what's happening now as it is, you will see the beauty in it. And will realize the new world is already here.
Below is a poem called The Silver Lining by Leila Stead that is one person's heartwarming version of that new world a year from now.
I can't wait for a years time, when all of this is a distant memory and there is a corona baby boom because all the lovers were lovin'.
And there is a rise in small business because all the entrepreneurs had a moment of stillness and creativity.
And all the children remember nothing but a time when all the mums and dads were at home and drawing and playing board games and we remember it as the time we all got to stop and be present.
We will remember the time our health was our first priority and people learnt new ways to use fresh produce to feed their families and we were all forced to think outside the box and dream up new things, and reinvent old ways and for once even amongst the chaos there was community, there was a global rise in togetherness and the streets were quiet but our homes were bustlin' with love and laughter.
That time is coming...soon just like other crises before it this will all be a distant memory, a thing we soon listen to our children discuss in classrooms, a once was; that we share with our grand babies. So to you - I know it's unsettling but focus on the silver lining, we are in this together and there's so much beauty to see.
Looking to the horizon
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