Pandemic: A Call to Transforming in Collaborative Love

As I write this, we are in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic. The world as we knew it, in just a short time has completely changed. It is a strange place. It feels surreal.

In my experience, appointments have been canceled, yoga studios closed, concerts, plays, schools and a myriad of events are no longer happening. Social distancing is keeping me from my grandkids and elderly neighbors. I’ve spent time on the phone calling and checking on those elderly neighbors, my adult children and my great Aunt who is immune compromised.

My family and I are supposed to share a beach house at the end of March, but this may not happen because now there’s rumors of domestic flights being canceled. My California daughter and husband have the airlines tickets, but must now wait to see what the government does. My third daughter is far away in Namibia, serving in the Peace Corp and yet we are connected through What’s App and the internet as we watch it spread.

Yesterday, I spent the day in an old growth forest literally hugging ancient trees, walking in silence and marveling at spider webs bejeweled with snow flakes. I shared this day with a dear friend who knows my spirit well and loves me.

Yet, this morning I woke with a body remembering that vibrated with anxiety. A familiar place. Oh yes, I’ve been here before. Anxiety has been a life long knowing of which I have been taming over the last 6 years through the inner work of healing, realigning my nervous system, and facing my trauma.

But this particular body remembering reminds me of those long hard days of waiting for cancer scan results of my young son. The false positive results that sent me over the edge only to discover all was well, for now at least. Then the waiting for the next scan. I called it “scanxiety”. It was real.

Yes, tree hugging helped, but this morning I needed more pranayama—breathing practice, yoga and Centering Prayer than usual. I also read an article or two that encouraged me. I’ve been gathering my thoughts.

This pandemic has shown us just how connected we all are across this one planet we call home. It’s exposed our supply chain dependence on each other, our economic interconnectedness and on and on. None of us, not one nation lives in a vacuum. Nor do we live in a vacuum separate from our living, breathing Earth. The pandemic has also shone the light on the gaping holes of our systems and the need for them to be reconfigured, so that none of us including our Home fall through the cracks.

This pandemic is a wake up call. It’s asking us to transform ourselves and our systems through collaborative love, not nationalistic individualism. It’s calling us to transform what is no longer working into something that allows all human life and earthly life to flourish. All of our problems and differences are being exposed by the pain of this pandemic. Nothing and no one escapes.

Will we continue to finger point and blame? Or will we roll up our sleeves and collaborate with one another in love and compassion? Will we panic hoard food, supplies and water? Or will we remember those who are shopping beside us, sharing what’s on the shelf in a spirit of abundance not scarcity? Will we love our neighbors as ourselves even our neighbors across the globe? Will we allow creativity to flow enough to let systems be changed for the better rather than fight the changes because of fear or because we’ve always done it a certain way?

This is a call for local outreach in love and compassion, of entrepreneurial innovation, and letting our creativity and imaginations run with what is possible through love, compassion and generosity.

Journalist and systems analysts, Hafeez Ahem said it best when he wrote: “Getting through coronavirus will be an exercise not just in building societal resilience, but relearning the values of cooperation, compassion, generosity and kindness, and building systems which institutionalize these value.”

I get so excited when I think of the possibilities.

My son’s cancer was a turning point for me. It was a wake up call that my way of being, my worldview, my certitude was no longer working. It cracked me open to a new view of humanity, God, this planet and I stepped into the invitation of healing, slowly, bit by bit. It is a lifelong journey. It is my experience and what I know and in it there is Universal Truth.

Just as I chose to step into this invitation, we too as a collective of human beings can step into this invitation of creating better systems, better ways of living, better loving and caring for one another and our Earth.

Many of the people around me, people in my community all agree this is the work to be done. They too have woken up, have had a shift, and have been called. The transformation will not come overnight, nor will it be easy, but it is possible. And this is what excites me!