The neighbour and I were speaking softly, last night, looking through the spring buds at the rising of the full moon. We were talking about the Covid-19 epidemic and its lockdown.
“I’ll be glad when this is over,” he mused
I nodded my agreement, but privately held other thoughts…
What exactly is ‘this’ I wondered? Have we really thought through what we are all going through?
Many things have come to a ‘harvest’ over the past few years, among them are:
The state of world politics has grown bleak. Particularly in the USA and the UK – which, not surprisingly, seem to be linked by far more than a common language and historic genes. So much that we took for granted as ‘the normal state of civilisation’ has been swept aside by the force, abuse of information and the power of the super-rich. We all seemed to take a breath and wait for the natural intervention of hidden guardians who would keep the faith with kindness and the kind of liberal values many of us thought were the established bedrock of our societies.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, that ‘old order’ seemed weak in its ability to do anything. Stronger, perhaps, in the home and communities that watched with horror as so much that had been hard-won was torn apart, as a wild dog might destroy a fine meal.
On another important issues, the general concern about ecology and looking after the Earth seemed subsumed by the single focus on a gas – carbon dioxide – now increasingly dubbed ‘evil’ despite being an utterly essential molecule of life. The complex relationships being modelled as ‘climate change’ have become so polarised that no alternative viewpoints are possible without being pilloried. I’m content to let the experts agree that their simulations, plus ‘much faster than ever before’ warming is taking place. But I’m not going to declare war on a gas that, until the start of the industrial revolution (1760 – 1840) had declined to such an extent that oxygen-breathing life on Earth was about to be threatened with extinction. Global warming may well be central, but our concern for the planet should be on a wider front…
Ironically, this is happening despite politics. Electricity generated from renewables (especially wind power) has now developed to such an extent that nuclear power is generally reckoned to have no future at all. I can only see this as an example of a much more potent ‘will of the people’ than the manipulation of political opinion during a once-in-five-years election that supposedly represents democracy. The alternatives to democracy are terrible, but are we really sure we have democracy in the first place?
And, now we have Covid-19. It’s a deadly ‘novel’ virus believed to emanate from bats via pigs in the ‘wet-markets’ of China. It has cut through the world’s societies without regard to any kind of status, wealth or privilege – though, like any illness, it infects the poor first, and hits them hardest. Most of the jobs being lost are lower paid ‘caring’ jobs that we’ve suddenly found so essential.
As I write this, the British Prime Minister is in intensive care in one of London’s top NHS hospitals, suffering from the deadly virus… in a country which has yet to begin to face the difficulties of ‘Brexit’ that lie ahead in our severed world.
And, it was this more that any other thing that has happened that made me think of a different level of meaning to what is changing all our lives.
My neighbour was staring at a beautiful full moon that had just emerged from behind the trees. It was so clear you could see its features with the naked eye. Quietly, he said, “It’s like someone has drawn a line across the moon… no-one can take their eyes off it.”
In that moment, I saw a new meaning to the Covid virus and its world-wide epidemic of misery and death. It was forcing us all, young and old, rich and poor, to think differently and as a single life-form.
The most potent part of this thought is the fragility of our world; not ‘world’ in the sense of nature – that will go on regardless of man’s waste, greed and folly – but ‘world’ as the way we live our daily lives.
The shock we are all feeling is a result of our previous way of life coming to an end, and of all of us staring into this face of the unknown ‘land’ where almost everything we took as inviolate is gone or dramatically changed… No longer will any British politician – regardless of ‘left’ or ‘right’ affiliation – be able to say that state money on a vast scale should not be spent from the country’s reserves to help people in need. That is already happening under the Conservative government’s own plan; recognising that those needy people are the very molecules of the economic system, itself – its life-blood.
All it took was a threat bigger than politics and more immediate than ‘climate change’.
That state of ‘gone’ may be temporary…or it may not. For the first time in living memory, nature has looked us in the face and dared us to survive. The scientific bits of how this happened are important. I’m not looking for some action of ‘God’ in this catastrophe. But, collectively, we are awakening in a world changed beyond belief in the shortest of timeframes. The power of this change makes politics look irrelevant. But perhaps the politics that might replace the stagnation of our present systems of government will find their birth in what the philosopher Gurdjieff would have called a ‘necessary shock’ to the system of regular rotation of events.
The archetypal ‘bully’ is on the floor, struck by a chance blow as we fell. But we can be first on our feet, and a changed and dramatic future may await those who can ride this energy of the new as the spectre of the world-virus fades from sight…but not from memory.
A ‘line across the moon’ indeed. Here’s to the sunrise…
©Stephen Tanham
Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, a not-for-profit teaching school of modern mysticism that helps people find a personal path to a deeper place within their internal and external lives.
The Silent Eye provides home-based, practical courses which are low-cost and personally supervised. The course materials and corresponding supervision are provided month by month without further commitment.
Steve’s personal blog, Sun in Gemini, is at stevetanham.wordpress.com.
Excellent Steve. Very well said. I hope, when the shock waves of this have begun to subside, that those with the vision to see what this has really been about, will be listened to and their advice acted upon. But it won’t be easy and it won’t be quick. Our often shocking superficiality and propensity for taking the quick and easy route through life is long embedded. Even so, whatever name one chooses to apply to whatever it is that is moving all this will not, I’m certain, in the short or long term, be denied.
Thank you, Besonian. As you say, we need to see this as part of something much bigger. Perhaps, then, we can harness that energy of a true ‘new age’ – born of gritty reality rather than fluff!
I think we’ll find that we’ll be hit with another indeterminate period of ‘austerity’ to pay for it all, and that those same politicians will use the current spend as an excuse not to do anything ‘on a vast scale’ for a long while to come.
I agree that this will be abused. But the principle of vast expenditure in the face of a crisis has been established by the PM and the Chancellor, though they may hide behind the implementation. Most of the failings of the Universal Credit system have been political rather than operational. The operational framework has actually been a success. Thank you for commenting.
Reblogged this on Stuart France.
Thank you, Stu.
Thank you, Sue x
Everything is so depressing… and pointless…
I’d have to agree with Besonian, here, Jaye. This is bigger than any single issue. Something huge is moving in the collective ‘psyche’ of mankind.
I know, I can feel it. Not sure I’m ready to face whatever it is though…
Deep breath for all of us! 😎
Depending on where you’re, that may not be wise. Not without a mask, anyway…
Quite! Not the best choice of words on my part!
Again – despair not! There is no exterior force about to jump up and confront us. The reason you can feel ‘whatever it is’ is because ‘whatever it is’ has its origins within you, within all of us. We are life; we are our own fate.
Don’t despair, Jenanita01. As Steve has said, there is much more to this than meets the cursory eye. This is a global wake-up call. And the driving force behind it is greater than we are.
Bravo, Steve! I too have been having similar reflections – you express it so well! I do wonder if this isn’t, actually, due to the benevolent actions of the ‘hidden guardians’, encouraging transformation and innovation. For my part, as I ride this wave and explore the potential of the energy. I keep in mind the mush of the crysalis’ imaginal cells that are metamorphosing into the beauty of the butterfly, even as we speak. I think change is inevitable and, perhaps, timely, leading to a fresh and brighter co-operation and appreciation of all beings, including the Earth.
Thank you, Caroline. The crysalis is a powerful symbol of change through the unknown – the mush, indeed. I see it not as a conscious action of guardians, but as a revelation as to the true nature of the forces of ‘chaos’ and fragility in their power of change. The guardians of wisdom are then empowered to act, but they have to take that decision and initiative.
Bravo, Steve! I too have been having similar reflections – you express it so well! I do wonder if this isn’t, actually, due to the benevolent actions of the ‘hidden guardians’, encouraging transformation and innovation. For my part, as I ride this wave and explore the potential of the energy, I keep in mind the mush of the crysalis’ imaginal cells that are metamorphosing into the beauty of the butterfly, even as we speak. I think change is inevitable and, perhaps, timely, and imagining what we would choose to create, like the imaginal cells, could lead to a fresh and brighter co-operation and appreciation of all beings, including the Earth.
Thank you, Caroline. The crysalis is a powerful symbol of change through the unknown – the mush, indeed. I see it not as a conscious action of guardians, but as a revelation as to the true nature of the forces of ‘chaos’ and fragility in their power of change. The guardians of wisdom are then empowered to act, but they have to take that decision and initiative.
Interesting that while this discussion was taking place, I received an email from a hotel chain discussing their reaction to our current global situation. In it, there was a comment about looking forward to being able to travel again in the near future. It made me wonder if people are digesting the changes that might be around the corner, not merely in relation to how societies arrange themselves, but also in how we interact with the planet (considering that pollution levels seem to be decreasing); not everyone is aware of the crysalis. On reflection, I am considering that we are experiencing a mass ‘individual’ transformation and that each of us will (naturally) have our own personal, internal reaction(s) and the changes may be more on individual levels than global…some will revert right back to ‘normal’ while others may transform their lives consciously. I suppose this is the case in any apocalyptic/utopian scenario (as they have been experienced in the past). I think we can create the lives we envision; I’m just not sure we all will…
(Sorry for the newbie double-post)
You’ve echoed many of my same thoughts, Steve. Hear, hear!
Thank you, Eliza 😎
Here’s to a new sunrise.