04/03/2020
In our culture we do not do well with endings, nor staying still; our focus is instead upon growth, becoming, innovating and staying young. Now we've been brought to a standstill, in our homes and in our lives.
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic we can still be in contact with each other through the Internet, which has become our conduit to work where available and to the rapidly evolving news.
At the same time, our technologies allow us to continue to stay busy and distracted with all of the things we do to avoid the dark unknown we have entered into.
Covid-19 has turned the world as we have known it upside down in just a few short weeks. The unknown landscape in which we find ourselves brings uncertainty and fear. As an emotion fear tells us to be vigilant. It say there’s a threat to our safety. In our instinctual bodies fear says “do something” to protect ourselves and those we care for. But right now there is not much we can “do” other than wash our hands, help and care for each other, and maintain social distance.
So we need to learn to sit with our fear and to get to know it better without letting it run away on us. As Buddhist teacher Pema Chordrun says,
“If you don't get to know fear, how will you come to know fearlessness?”
Initiatory rights of passage have three distinct stages. The first is a descent into the unknown, a dark forest in which there is no clear path.
We are there now.
My problem-solving mind wants to come up with plans in this time of crisis. What do I do with the retreat season at our centre? How do I preserve and respond? Yet there is a deeper voice that says pause, stay quiet, listen and observe. Be with the fear and unknown until the path forward becomes more clear.
The second initiatory threshold involves drawing upon inner resources that have not been previously discovered. This is where we are called to step into new capacities, new ways of being, that are called forth by the very situation in which we find ourselves.
That is the light we find in the darkness, the one that illuminates the hidden path through the forest.
We enter the third stage of initiation when we carry this light back into the world and share it in our communities; this is where the culture is enriched by the very difficulty we have found our way through.
The Covid-19 virus has stopped the world in its tracks. From business to travel, to the endless consumption. Air pollution and carbon emissions are way down. Rivers are once again running clean. If we step into the perception that Earth, Gaia, is a self-regulating intelligence, this virus becomes something pushing us to slow down, configure new economic arrangements, and care for each other in more kind and basic ways. This does not brush aside the hardships we presently face with all expectations turned upside down. There will be loss. Perhaps people we know and care for will succumb to this illness. There will be loss of livelihood and economic security. Loss of the hopes we hold for the future. And yet here in the grieving of these losses, both real and imagined, we are reminded that death and loss are part of life.
We are not Masters of the Universe. Like all other organic lifeforms we are part of the food chain. The Covid-19 virus pushes us to be with our fears and to find our way back to a new humility.
The root of the word humility is humus, Earth. We are being asked to stay grounded, close to the earth, so that we may find a new kind of reciprocity that can inform our relations with each other and the living world.
At this point we are still near the beginning of the changes that this virus brings. It appears that we will likely have to cancel our spring programming at the retreat center, and perhaps the whole 2020 season.
It is too soon to know.
In the pictograms that form the Chinese language, the image for “crisis” means at the same time “opportunity.” For those of you who have been part of the life of our retreat centre over the last 16 years, I invite your insights and feedback into the opportunity that rests within this crisis.
We have a chance to renew and reconfigure the arrangements that have dictated what is and what is not possible in the world we have known. Things are changing fast. Governments that recently practiced austerity are now handing out funds to keep families and businesses afloat.
I have a sense that the retreat sanctuary we have created on this mountainside overlooking Nelson will continue to be a place where people come together and learn from each other. A place to find refuge and renewal, though in the future this may happen in different ways. For those of you in Canada who are isolating yourself with social distancing practices, there may be opportunities to be closer to nature, to walk wilderness trails, to eat from our organic garden by coming to Mountain Waters and staying in one of our cabins. The retreat centre may also be available for monthly rental within the safety of social distancing protocols, we can still engage in wellness practices, connect to the Earth and by doing so build resilience and healthier immunity.
I welcome your thoughts, and wish for all of you that you find ways to take care of hearts and minds, as well as your friends, families and neighbors, during this time when so much is changing and so much remains unknown.
Love, Richard.
