The whispered invitation to let everything fall away arrives in the form of a screaming command from the external powers that be. My family had made a list of New Year’s intentions in January, and finally, on Day One of Social Isolation, we seized the opportunity to indulge in one of them – a family walk in nature. Four humans and three canine friends romped through the woods all together, for the first time, having been given permission by an unprecedented situation to decide what was important in their lives.
The gifts of the Virusverse have arrived all week. Some big, some small and every one seeming as sweet and precious as the next. The undeniable sensation of illness arising from the base of my skull, encroaching over my vertex, drawing my eyelids shut, and demanding that I truly stop. That I fall into stillness, into silence, into my breath. That I surrender my healing to my body and to the wisdom of the plants and minerals of the earth. The deliciousness of daily mediation. Acting on the decision, taken with my children, to find ways to give to others in our community who are in need. The moment when two bluebirds danced in a tree outside the bedroom window, singing Spring into existence. Hours spent calculating our family carbon footprint and then figuring out what we could do to reduce it. The sweet revenge of not setting the alarm clock as I slid into bed at night. The healing belly-laughter as a Jamaican friend passionately encouraged people around the world to drop the toilet paper armageddon farce and just, ‘Wash your batty!’. The waking which confirmed that sleep had visited as I sat in a bath of Epsom salts. Thirty sweet minutes of yoga shared with a grinning, giggling son who would never be nine again. The lifting of the corners of my lips when the same nine year old boycotted our first family meditation to go build his fort. Resting in the state between sleep and waking, and savoring a dream where the air was caressed by the music of a piano, and I was lying on the earth gazing in wonderment and bliss at a sky overflowing with stars; being bathed and blessed by the light from moments in the past that I cannot even begin to imagine. The knowing that my sweet, frail, eighty-five year old great-aunt who fell and broke her hip and elbow in Barbados last week would not be alive to greet me the next time I went home. Pneumonia had descended into her lungs and was complicating the possibility of surgery. The knowing that that is the way of things. That life and death are two sides of the same coin. Inseparable. Unavoidable. Two steps on a journey of infinite duration. The markets crash and our savings are lost. Does it matter? What matters now? Now. Being here, now, is all that matters. Being here to experience the joy of being human. Being here to experience the bliss of caremongering and social engagement, and open-hearted communion with other sentient beings. Being here to step into our creator selves and harness the power of this moment in order to envision, align with and manifest a new and better future for all. These moments and reflections are the gifts of the Virusverse, where the sun rises and sets and rises again, and Winter is always followed by Spring.
And today is the day of the Spring Equinox. For a cosmic instant, we find ourselves precariously balanced on the precipice of change. Day and night stand face to face, of equal strength and length. The duet of yin and yang, the constant swirl and ebb and flow, wax and wane of their never-ending dance of change, pauses for a breath. Fear that we will fall into the infinite void is but a wave-form in our minds. We are blessed with the gift of choice and free will. Sit still and face the horizon. Feel the wave recede as it rushes to the shore without you. The earth is alive under her frozen crust. Winter never triumphs. The Spring of your Consciousness is rising. Accept the invitation. Step forward into the light.
