Insights brought about by virus

There is something about this coronavirus pandemic that is tugging at the edges of my awareness.

It’s the name, for starters. Corona. It is a grand name, in a good way, not one you would naturally choose to give to a dreaded global pandemic.

It brings to mind a crown, stars, royalty, something substantial, something not to be ignored, something that will bring about change before it is ready to move on, something that may bestow a blessing, even.

In Marianne Williamson’s book, The Gift of Change, she explains that every problem comes bearing its own solution.

I’m sure we have all noticed that our planet has been able to miraculously restore itself over these past few months.

It has thrived in the absence of us humans, a sorry realisation indeed.

Corona has unveiled the fact that it is us humans that have been the problem and it is now up to us to be the solution.

To do so, we each need to make a huge shift in our day-to-day awareness, to open our hearts and make the journey, from conflict and fear to peace and love.

We each need to undergo the inner changes required to enable the healing Spirit to do its work on us and therefore on the world.

Williamson ends by saying: “The most important factor in determining what will happen in our world is what you decide to let happen within you.”

Williamson wrote this in 2004, long before the corona pandemic, and yet it still applies to the current situation.

The truth is the truth no matter place or time, as truth is eternal.

How appropriate her observations are for this strange and challenging time of Covid-19.

Covid-19, now there’s a name that sounds more suitable. It brings to mind covert forces, undercover activities, numbers and authoritarianism.

Let’s release our negative attachment to the Covid-19 persona and shift our gaze to its corona persona; something to respect, something to acknowledge rather than something we hope will disappear in order for things to return to normal.

Was “normal” so great? I can think of many things that felt like we’d lost our way within the “normal”.

Ironically now, in spite of the suffering and loss, I can think of many things that indicate we are finding our way home.

I welcome some insights that corona has brought me. As an introverted person, I have come to realise what social creatures we really are, and how important our interactions are, for they nurture and nourish us.

”Hello, how are you?” is so much more than just that. It is an acknowledgement of the same spark of life in each other.

As the Louis Armstrong song says: “I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘how do you do?’…. what they’re really saying is ‘I love you’.”

Most of us can attest to acts of kindness, both given and received, that have activated our dormant hearts, hearts that have been hibernating in our busy “normal” world. This expansive feeling in the heart area is the new world we can bring into being. This is the gift of change that corona can bring us.

SHERYL BRADFIELD