This Special Time

Hello friends, it has been a while. 
And in that while, everything has changed.

 At this time, bumps in the road seem trivial. However, a bump along the innerweather road shut me down like the coronavirus has shut our shared communities down. To make a long story short, Microsoft lost my email off their server and made broadcasts impossible for a while. I am happy to announce I am back in business and plan to increase the communication. Should you ever want to share comments or discuss anything I write with everyone on my list, you can also read all the posts directly on www.innerweather.com and comment in the discussion boxes below each post.

With that said, a new post is here, and there is only one subject possible to address;
the pandemic and this global re-set.

The two things that stand out that we are learning above all from this virus:

• we are all equal. In the midst of this new reality, no amount or nature of privilege, advantage or disadvantage distinguish us right now.
  

• we are truly all connected. If it wasn’t obvious before, now it is a stark-naked reality staring us in the face. What you do affects me, and what I do affects you. I don’t have to touch you, I don’t have to know you, I don’t have to talk to you, I don’t even have to know if I ever met you – you can still change my world in a second.

Suddenly, and for the first time in humanity’s history, every single human being exposed to the same issue, the same rules, the same immediate dangers, the same required information at the same time, hour by hour across the planet. News and updates are transmitted across the world from everywhere constantly, and each of us is dependent on how everyone else responds to the news and the directives as the bigger picture and the final results depend entirely on how well humanity can agree and play together right now.

It is a posture shift, both required and also naturally emerging as we all are forced to look at ourselves and each other differently. We are in uncharted territory. Suddenly things we have taken for granted as ours to control are no longer in our control. But as always before, we are still in control of how we respond.

Incomprehensible numbers pop up on our screens of tragic and untimely deaths of people everywhere.
Immense amounts of other people are directly affected, like all the medical workers or those for whom the virus is up close, all of whom have less luxury of choice in how to respond emotionally to the situation. There are no words to compensate for the losses of lives and the people forever changed by a loved one’s sudden departure.

But a majority of the world’s population is sheltering-in-place, staying inside mostly. Free to sleep and rest in ways everyday life has never afforded them, bonding with their children in ways they could have never dreamt of, discovering their homes as their nests, cooking and reconsidering what they eat, reinventing themselves……

Imagine the consequences of that for a moment.
A world at rest.

Do the birds really chirp louder now? With humanity temporarily banned from our usual behavior and influence on our surroundings, leaving so much havoc in our wake as we do, this out-of-control ravaging virus is wreaking havoc in OUR lives instead, demanding us to learn new life skills.

With the noise gone, pollution suddenly reduced, a new trash awareness emerging and nowhere unimportant acceptable to go by car,  isolation and stillness are our new teachers.

Minds at rest think well. Rested people produce creative ideas and solutions. Rested minds have clarity and can see they have choices. Enough rested people could produce giant changes. Imagine the possibilities.

To imagine that WE are that chapter in future history records - each of us will forever remember where we were and how we handled this transition into a new version of humanity.

This is our chance, each of us, to write ourselves into history, because what we did mattered – to someone, or we did something to change the future on any tiny level, we followed the directives, we changed our habits, we learned what is essential, we became aware of our own every little move and of others’ and their moves like never before.

After the immediate consequences of this tragedy, we might ponder the probable fallout, good and bad.

After we reach a turning a point, the possible after-effects may come into focus.

And once we are allowed back into the world and dare again to think freely, the imaginable outgrowth may pop up as the numbers on our screens are replaced by new scenarios.

After we have course corrected, and a deep shared breath later, we might emerge as connected as always, but with a new shared understanding of the truth of this as the core of humanity.

Where there is no map, we must chart new paths. We must create the new map together. We must connect the dots of fear and action and responsibility and opportunity, which together will form our shared future. Perhaps reasons people around the globe so far have justified terrorizing each other over land possessions and political or religious beliefs will forever have been illuminated for us as not only pointless, but destructive to both ourselves and the whole of us. Could it be that COVID-19 will teach humanity to live at peace with each other in our shared world? We have all lost the way of life as we knew it. Nothing will go back to the way it was 3 weeks ago. There is no longer them and us.