Holy smokes! Three weeks already since I started blogging about this pandemic. Most of the world is standing still but at the same token time is flying by, not waiting even for a single second.

The same is true I guess for those in the front lines at the moment. Researchers and scientists around the world working 24/7, collaborating in unprecedented fashion. Trying to find a cure for this malaise. This thing that slowly draws breath from those who are unlucky to get exposed to it and not strong enough to weather its invasion into their air ways.

Someone sent me this poem written in 1869 during the time of the bubonic plague. This was unearthed again during the smallpox pandemic in 1919. A century later, we’re in it and living it again. History does repeat itself.

Poem Written by Kathleen O’Mara

And people stayed at home
And read books
And listened
And they rested
And did exercises
And made art and played
And learned new ways of being
And stopped and listened
More deeply
Someone meditated, someone prayed
Someone met their shadow
And people began to think differently
And people healed.
And in the absence of people who
Lived in ignorant ways
Dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
The earth also began to heal
And when the danger ended and
People found themselves
They grieved for the dead
And made new choices
And dreamed of new visions
And created new ways of living
And completely healed the earth
Just as they were healed.

Reprinted during Spanish flu
Pandemic, 1919

I was telling my siblings the other day that I always thought that another pandemic will come but never would have I imagined it will happen in our lifetime. I thought humanity will have a few more years before a major pandemic will hit but here it is. If history does repeat itself, I’m heartened by the fact that most of our ancestors survived to tell the tale. I hope that we do fare much better than they did 100 years ago. HOWEVER, we also collectively have to take this scary experience really deep into our consciousness and learn from it.

We can’t be doing the same things we were doing pre-CoVid19. We cannot continue to capture wild animals from their habitat because we can. We cannot pretend that our actions towards the natural world – disturbing their habitat through deforestation, burning swaths of forest because we need to build factories or need to allocate more area for commercial farming or sometimes, housing, conduct illegal fishing and relentlessly consume anything packaged mostly in plastic, etc – is not directly related in any way to the arrival of this viral malaise.

After we all recover from this, whether we are just bystanders trying to protect our families and loved ones, or are the people in the front lines saving lives, or those of us who just lost loved ones from this disease, what are we going to do differently? What vision are we going to have for our future?

What are we going to do differently to help heal the Earth so in turn, we can be healed?

Something to think about while our minds are still and there’s nowhere to go.