Working through the tension right now.
WHO declared last Wednesday that the coronavirus outbreak is a pandemic. Left and right, events are being canceled because of it, in hopes to stop the spread of this new virus. I’m even thinking of holding classes online. Would you be interested in signing up? Do let me know.
As I’d rather not be alarmist, I would like to go inward instead. Know that health organizations, here and abroad, are doing their best to address the situation. There are people working overtime for a cure. We have overcome similar situations, sometimes even worse. The last pandemic that had people worried was H1N1 in 2009…and somehow, even with worry and panic, we overcame.
Let us make room to overcome.
Closing this with an excerpt by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, an American poet, and psychoanalyst. As she famously said, “We were made for these times.”
“In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.”
You can read her words in full here.
When we move through the chaos, let us be mindful. That starts from stocking up for possible quarantines, keeping a distance from people, or even turning away when you sneeze.
Hope to see you soon. May the peace come sooner than we all expect.
In loving service,
Rosan
