Bird on the ground
This is a moment to put your house into order. Everything happening right now, if put together, is bringing the world into the hearth. The poison - latin meaning for the word virus - that is attacking the human system brings huge suffering and necessary change. We have to adapt, or we will cling to an outdated attitude and not make it. Or if we do make it, we will do so with a lot of bitterness. The moment of heightened crisis is the chance to get out of being caught in a one sided way of being. The pandemic - also an image of the problem, the devil, the conflict - is forcing us to decentralise. In the moment of crisis what we we are already doing is the solution, just in its babyhood. We are in quarantine, which means going into a state, place or period of isolation. Nature has forced a restraint, a necessary boundary to rectify us. We are out of balance, so caught in our Apollo style of centralized power. The globalization got us connected, but we lost connection with our insides. Now we are propelled into being at home.
Home is nicely limited to offer a good feeling of comfort. It is our little castle, the place we can and do meet ourselves. If it is good it is a haven and place of protection. If it is not so good it is a place we try to escape, fight constantly in and feel most lonely. Now we all get to see the state of our homes, and we get a chance to better them.
Of course the house reflects, is an image of, our personal psyche. The noise of life, with its constant going to and from, checking in here and there, with regiment and pace, that noise is quieting. Now we have to deal with the reality of our children, and if we can educate them. Not outsource their learning but actually take on thinking about how we are shaping our kids. Perhaps ask how we individually want to shape them, what that north star is. Home schooling is happening everyday regardless whether we send our children to school. They learn in the home, every moment, about how and who to be. For home schooling to thrive long term, and I hope it does, it has to get past this crisis and be understood as something within a community. Just as the home is, but a much smaller one.
The place we find ourselves now is isolated. We go there with the gift of internet, a dividend of our Apollo time. We can still be connected, maybe even see clearly how connected to the central system we are, and maybe how more of that might not be better. It is hard to see that we are also caught in a web, a world wide web of being outside of ourselves. Everything is happening out of us, we no longer do any reflection. Taking time to just be with yourself is now time given not optioned. Maybe we need this time.
As I sit on the ground, a nomad bird staying put, I am most grateful for where I am. The kind of place we chose is working well now. It was a bit of a gamble getting it, but not much, mostly involving not listening to some strongly asserted opinions. Opinions like homeschool is not actually viable, or being so remote in nature is not a good isolation. But I am very pleased to be on the tip of an island, surrounded by forest and ocean, already homeschooling and comfortable in it, doing remote work, doing semi remote studying and really devoted to my children and family. These qualities are useful now. They are not mine, no idea is. How I put it together might be individual and unique, but we all still root in the same shared images. As I observe the picture now it seems like being more nomad is necessary.
Nomadism is more than a lifestyle of physically shifting environment. It is an attitude. The attitude follows a rhythm, environments shift in a cycle following nature. It is not haphazard and it is very malleable. The course can be changed swiftly. That makes the nomadic attitude very adaptable, optimal in moments of crisis and change. It is less useful long term in the building of culture which requires more collectivism. You could say it is a bit more barbaric since its small units don’t seek to integrate fully into the common state. It isn’t meant for long term or building common culture. It is less civilized and useful in edge cases or higher uncertainty.
Nomads are isolated and like it that way. The limits imposed were traditionally nature given. Nature deals her cards and the nomad responds. The rhythm of the nomad cycles fairly regularly, according to season. But if a change is required the course can be changed quickly, mostly because nomads carry less stuff. If you have less bulk you can move faster. You still have to sustain so what you have has to be meaningful, but it is easier to shed an opinion if you are willing to study it like something you may decide not to own. Then you make your mood an object, you can look at it without looking out from being possessed by it.
Covid-19 is possessing us, we have to deal with this dragon. The world psyche is being challenged to change how it relates, how it touches and connects. Old kings are falling, necessarily so, like educational institutions and modes of work that require conferences and going to an office. Those that are resilient will have an attitude that meets the moment, not looking at what caused it but by asking what is happening together. This is a Chinese way of being, it asks what is happening together, not what caused it and the sequence that follows. The Chinese and Koreans have so far dealt with this crisis the best. They can see how to put together the right responses in the right moment. The quality of a deed is doing something in the right intensity at the right time. So the moment is crucial, and then you align your attitude with that, with the right quantity of feeling. It is difficult and also the sum of our ethic. It measures if we are in integrity.
The matrix of happening together looks like nature in her wrath, people turning inward, staying where you are, boundaries coming up, smaller groups being better than larger. The mass group is being challenged to get smaller, more intimate, remote, and still stay connected. We are being forced to get real, fast. Intuitively we have been watching this coming from mid January. The math divined a fate that is currently becoming real. Being nomadic means taking that critical moment and no matter how dismal finding the gold.
Feeling into this moment allows for more uncertainty than might be comfortable. The kind of predictions you make when you are not aiming for certainty is more like gambling. You mainline into the heart of fate, numbers can help structure that divination but it is a once in a moment prediction. Some divinations really yield gold, and then its best not to get too inflated and thank spirit. The kind of people shining right now have an insight , they divined well, into what we need to adapt. People like Balaji who got the image early of what was happening and then outlined the natural sequence that would emerge. Just like a fairy tale which if you get the opening and basic archetype, will always unfold in the same way. Like if the king is old and has three sons, you know they have to find the princess and integrate the feminine into the structure. Whatever symbol is opening the Covid-19 virus it is something that makes us more alone.
I do not think the changes we are seeing now will get less, I think more pandemics are coming. I have a hunch that the level of disruption we are seeing now in work structures and educational systems will be long term. I don’t think people are going to want to return to the way things were, and they probably won’t be able to. The isolation and for many enforced time off at home, may actually let more cakes be baked, intimate moments and relaxation. It is in a context of a lot of fear, real danger and suffering. But going into this state of isolation and lock down might feel better than people say. It would be optimal if we come out of this period having found something that makes our life better and then keep doing that. It would make the crisis a chance to renew.
Right now I am a bird on the ground, watching spring form, planting seeds, making flower beds. I am refining our home school routine, improving my house, taking more time to study. I am thinking about how I could be add value given the conditions. My wings are not clipped, they are just finding other ways to fly.
