So, we’re in it. We’re in an unprecedented global pandemic crisis involving sickness, death, health care overwhelm and massive economic contraction, in a time of jet travel, internet, and virtual shopping, entertainment, social interaction and virtual you-name-it. There’s so much one could write about it, eh?
I’m tired.
Over a week ago I retreated to the family ranch in Northern Utah. I’ve been living here, next door to my sister and her family, in the old English Tudor house my grandfather built in 1928. There was no water in the house for the first seven days because the main water valve in the basement finally gave out after 40 years. I carried buckets from my sister’s house to flush the toilet once a day, and had a couple of big jugs for drinking and washing water. I kind of liked it, playing ascetic. It felt appropriate.
My intention had been to slow down and connect to myself so I could handle my own emotional world as COVID-19 blossomed in Europe and started for real in the United States.. I ended up being freaking busy! I had Zoom call after Zoom call for days. They were all important — vital, in fact. Most days I felt super grounded and heart cracked open, but some days I felt exhausted and shitty.
Many resources have helped me during this retreat time. A video of of New York doctor’s first hand experience and information about the virus was good to watch. Charles Eisenstein’s latest essay takes an intelligent and comprehensive view. I was very drawn by a 2018 film about the Kogi people of Columbia and their quiet, embodied knowing of how everything is connected . . . and that they are coming forth now to speak to us modern people.
Connecting though my computer screen with people around the world, and hearing their stories brought home into my bones the reality of humanity as One. Doing yoga really felt good. Allowing myself to sleep and have a couple of lazy days when I was not feeling so great has been important. And attending to my own grief, and pure animal existential fear . . . letting it flow in me, has been key as well.
I’ve been in ceremony these past ten days. I’ve been compelled to connect to the Larger Force and Field of Life, to make sense and meaning of this time, and my part to play in it..
Soon I will be going back to Salt Lake City, where the peak of the virus is projected to hit around April 23. I have responsibilities to take care of.
I’m ready.
There is something I did that helped get me to a place of being ready to go back. I have joined a cohort of caregivers who are offering their services free of charge to frontline workers and their families in the NYC greater metropolitan area. (I’m lucky and feel grateful to the colleague who let me know about it and sent me the link to sign up!) There is something about being able to do something I know matters that shifts my relationship to the whole situation— even as it scares me to step in. It is a shift from a passive position to an active one.
This offering is one of a zillion that are pouring out of us right now. Creativity and compassion are exploding, along with the virus. I think of Burning Man and their experiment with the gift economy. And here we are, doing it all over the world!
I had this great thought: What if there was a robust global gift economy, right alongside of the money-based one? What if we measured the output of this gift economy as equally real and valuable as the money one? The output is love, compassion, empathy, belonging, laughter, soul-satisfaction, the delight of sharing someone else’s world, and of being of service. We’re dying for that kind of economic exchange, I believe.
So, I’m writing this little blog to just say a few not-too-heavy or philosophical things in this Time of Corona. It’s encouragement for all who read it to practice intensive self-care, and to listen for your own perfect niche in the creativity and compassion that’s flourishing, if it’s not yet tapped you on the shoulder.
Sending love!