I'm betting on the intangibles.

Grief and hope during my week with Covid.

Hi Friends,

I’m just getting over Covid. It’s day ten since the first symptoms took hold, and aside from a lingering, mostly dry cough and some congestion, I feel fine now. Actually I feel great, like one does after they’ve come through to the other side of sickness. Life looks a little brighter, and I’m grateful. Outside of two really rough nights, one of which I felt as sick as I can remember feeling, I had a fairly mild, I’m assuming Omicron, experience.

The first few nights weren’t just physically uncomfortable, they were emotionally unnerving as well. I felt depressed and grief-stricken about this virus, its origins, the extraordinary loss of life and lingering illness, the toll this pandemic (and our response) has taken on humanity, the deepening cognitive dissonance and divisions among us, the insane, authoritarian measures being taken by governments around the world, and the extreme censorship of most dissenting voices. I kept bursting into tears, my mind focused only on darkness, only on the unrelenting pain of what we are living through and the unconscious ways in which we are living through it.

Is there any doubt we are destroying ourselves? Is there any doubt this pandemic has accelerated the process of destruction?

You may or may not know that when a caterpillar goes into its cocoon to begin its metamorphosis, the process is anything but gentle. The caterpillar doesn’t just suddenly sprout wings and all is butterfly beautiful. First, it digests itself, releasing enzymes that dissolve it into a gooey soupy unrecognizable mess. Utter destruction before the metamorphosis happens. It’s not reforming what was; it’s starting anew.

I hesitate to admit this but it’s true: there’s a part of me that wants everything to burn to the ground. Our political parties. The mainstream media. Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Oil. All the Bigs that care more for profit than the well-being of the humans they serve, or the planet they exploit. Let it all dissolve into a gooey soupy mess. We are not just a sick society, we are severely diseased. Even the notion of reform necessitates engagement with organizations and structures with which I no longer want to participate. I’m not sure how to reform the Bigs out of their compulsion for more power and greed. We have been groomed under the talons of patriarchy, and its systems are grasping ever more desperately to stay in control. Most of us feel something is terribly wrong, and it’s no longer tenable for many of us to try and force ourselves into a patriarchal structure that feels more and more like a prison and never felt like home.

The world around us is collapsing, crumbling, imploding, and it feels terrifying to many of us. Yes, we want out from under the shadows of these crippling systems, but there is still a sense of comfort in what is known, even when what is known is wildly unjust and uncomfortable. We humans are creatures of habit, and change of any kind will always stoke resistance and fear. And yet, change is happening and the process seems to be accelerating by the day. There’s no going back to what was. Don’t you feel this truth in your bones? And why would we want to go back to what was, when it so clearly wasn’t working for too many of us?

We have seen throughout this pandemic the patriarchal institutions assert more power and control over their citizens, and we have also seen surface a clear and growing response to this grasp at more power and control: many of us are waking up to the hypocrisies and injustices of our government, media and ruling corporations, and are refusing to participate with their demands. Another awakening is happening among us, this one I feel in response to the general state of uncertainty with which we all live that this pandemic has highlighted: more and more of us are looking at the choices we’re making in our own lives and aligning them more deeply with the callings of our hearts. We are getting more comfortable saying no to what feels false and yes to what feels true. We are listening to our intuition more readily, to our inner-knowing, our inner-being. We are becoming more animal in nature, which means we are becoming more divine, as well. Aligned. One with Source.

I know I’m doing myself, and our world, a disservice when I only allow myself to focus on what’s not working, on how dark things are, on how far away real healing feels. Not only am I cutting myself off from at least half of what’s possible, this pessimism is rooted in an ego that believes it knows how things will unfold when in fact it has no idea. I have no idea how things will continue to unfold, but when I see people turning off the news, and quitting jobs they hate, and learning how to fuel their bodies with healthy foods and supplements, and refusing to comply with unjust mandates, and playing with their creativity, and helping one another through sickness and hardship, I can’t help but feel hopeful.

Not a naive hopeful either.

There’s a lot more pain and destruction to come, that’s for sure. The only thing as certain as the crumbling of these patriarchal systems is the fight we’ll see from the patriarchy to maintain them. We are not on the other side of the collapse; we are in the midst of it. My hope still lives in the power of the people, even though in our divisions, in our unwillingness to recognize how much the same we really are, we are far from as powerful as we can be. There is much room to grow.

In professional tennis, the commentators will often assess the players before the match begins, to predict who is going to win. They discuss the players’ different weaknesses, and weapons, and then also what they refer to as the intangibles. Things like competitive spirit and mental toughness. The intangibles aren’t as obvious as a killer serve or wicked forehand, but they are every bit as important.

There is an energetic shift happening on our planet right now. Do you feel it? A gravitation to more simple living, to the guidance of our elders and ancestors, to the wisdom of our indigenous cultures, to the power of food and breath and meditation, to the necessity of connection and vulnerability and time spent in nature, to the innate understanding of how powerful we are in our humanity and our divinity. The actions creating and being created by this energetic shift are tangible; we are seeing and feeling them in all the ways I mentioned and more. The energy itself, however, feels like a wild intangible, so huge and unpredictable I would never bet against it. Like an upwelling of support from God herself. Like a hurricane of hope and possibility and transcendence. Like a monster wave meant to carry us from the abyss to shore. As long as we just keep on swimming.

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Have you read/practiced The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron? I’m guessing many of you have and love it as much as I do. I’m so excited to be presenting at Heal + Create, a two-week virtual retreat dedicated to personal transformation, healing and creative living, along with the one and only Julia Cameron, Jacob Nordby, David Gandelman, Flora Bowley, Lisa McCourt, and so many more. It starts in early February and is going to be just beautiful. Go HERE for details and registration.