For many years, I’ve kept my own journals to capture my own spiritual progress and record the patterns weaving in and around my life. When I look back, I can see how I’ve grown, and I appreciate the important lessons I needed to encounter along the way. During these unprecedented times, I find myself needing to record my thoughts and feelings more, as though I am drawn to the need to record them. My mind goes round and round trying to make sense of what is happening right now, not just in the USA, but all over the world.

The spiritual discipline of journaling is meant to be so much more than just a record of events. It’s a way to relish time with your self in quiet contemplation and reflection, and it will help you connect with your soul on a deeper level.  It’s a bit like a meditative conversation with your inner-self. It can also be a cathartic time, where you're able to work out your response to what's going on, and hopefully find comfort from within. If you've never made time to keep a journal before, maybe this is the ideal time to start. I like to call my journal, a Soul Journal.

Although COVID-19 is very easily transmitted from person to person, the risk of subsequent hospitalization and death primarily affects people who are already at risk because of old age, infirmity and/or chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, autoimmune illness, obesity, and heart disease.  All of these chronic illnesses are associated with measurable low-grade inflammation in the body.  The chronic low-grade inflammation that develops with advanced age has become known as “inflammaging”. Most people with chronic illness unknowingly have low-grade inflammation. Recent research points to a second finding: these same disorders are often accompanied by persistent low-grade anxiety and depression.

All of this as a background increases the danger for a person when acute illness strikes. In addition to the elderly and chronically ill, COVID-19 is causing acute respiratory illness and stroke sometimes leading to death in seemingly otherwise healthy younger individuals.  The transition from SARS-CoV-2 infection to diagnosed COVID-19 is typically accompanied by a “cytokine storm.” Cytokines are proteins that are major drivers of inflammation, and their rapid increase, or "storm” is one of the body’s immune responses to acute threat.

What could you offer?

The Practice:
Make the offering.

Why?

One of the strangest and most meaningful experiences of my life occurred when I went through Rolfing (ten brilliant sessions of deep-tissue bodywork) in my early 20’s. The fifth session works on the stomach area, and I was anticipating (= dreading) the release of buried sadness. Instead, there was a dam burst of love, which poured out of me during the session and afterward. I realized it was love, not sadness, that I had bottled up in childhood – and what I now needed to give and express.

We can hold back our contributions to the world, including love, just as much as we can muzzle or repress sorrow or anger. But contribution needs to flow; it stagnates and gets stinky if it doesn’t. Thwarted contribution is the source of much unhappiness. For example, the wound of loneliness and heartache is about not having others to give to as much as not having others to get from. And one of the major issues with adolescence in technological cultures is that there are few opportunities for teenagers to make a real difference, to matter and feel a sense of earned worth.

An interesting scene unfolded before me. Two women deep in conversation walked down the street. One was dragging a much-used suitcase, and both were drinking from sparkling champagne flutes. They acted as if it was an everyday outing. It was the combination of crystal glassware and a battered suitcase that caught my attention. This was in contrast to the manicured neighborhood they walked through.

The following morning I was hiking when a bird landed on the trail about seven feet in front of me.  My puppy and I watched a very large rattlesnake come out of the grass on one side of the trail. It slithered right past the bird and disappeared into dried grass on the opposite side.  As we walked by, I could only see the rattles and part of the tail, the head and body were completely hidden.  There was something comforting about observing the bird and the snake experiencing the only life they know.

Our world holds vast opportunities for very unique and rich experiences. We have the potential for amazing views, sounds, tastes, and colors. Every possibility we can think of, can be created. This concept is the foundation of the Law of Attraction.  It is a popular practice used to manifest what you want in life. It encourages ownership for what shows up on your life path, or drive home.

Is the entry point to making leaps in consciousness always preceded by darkness?

I ponder Joseph Campbell’s Hero's Journey, the “Dark Night of the Soul”; considered to be a spiritual depression, an acute existential crisis requiring a deep dive into one’s darkest depths that must be endured before enlightenment. Dark Night of the Soul is not a new concept, the earliest origins date back to a poem written by the 16th-century Spanish mystic and poet St. John of the Cross. The void, or “the abyss” as I used to call it, appears to be the critical “space/place” of healing. The properties of this void intrigued me, is this “the nothing”(ness)?

It took me back to thoughts of one of my favourite childhood films and of Atreyu on his quest in The Neverending Story. The protagonist having endured the depressing death of his beloved horse Artax, is now on board the luck dragon; Falkor, in search of the borders of Fantasia…The experience within the void prickles with pure potential. He must pass through 3 gates to give a new name to the Childlike Empress, and save Fantasia from vanishing from existence.

All of us in Humanity’s Team hope you and yours are navigating the lockdown with peace and equanimity. We know how challenging it can be to find quiet space at home, attend to kids, and support seniors who might have special needs.

I’m writing to you today about something that has emerged as an urgent priority during the Coronavirus pandemic.

This urgency is that we not let the opportunity slip away from us to transform the ‘pause’ we are currently experiencing in our communities and in the world. Pause means temporary stop. Generally, when we move past ‘pause,’ we continue in the same direction.