This is a time of...

Preparation

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything from your house, so that joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”

Rumi

          I listened to Caroline Myss’ message about transformation this morning. She very definitely sees this time of pandemic as an opportunity for deep change—not just of the way we live as a society, but for the planet as a whole. She suggests that it is a time of healing—of pulling back the veils of “normalcy” and realizing that what we call normal is not sustainable—in fact, we’ve seen the end of it. We are given time to sit with ourselves and contemplate, not only what needs to be healed for the world, but also what needs to be healed within each of us.

          This illness, Myss says, is our journey of transformation. What led to it in the first place, if we set aside conspiracy theories and animal transmission, and look deeper into what we called “normal” before? What needs to be healed in our society that has brought us to this moment? Well, a couple of things come to mind for me: 1) the utter inequality of wealth, and the emphasis on me and mine, and 2) the emphasis on individual rights, rather than the needs of all. I know we in America have been engaged in a love-fest with ourselves for a long time. We’re the greatest, we’re the shining city on a hill, we’re the envy of the world, and so forth, and so on. Time for that to change because it is delusional. Also, because we need to grasp just how much we rely upon others, and that what is good for the rest of the world, is also good for us. It’s okay not to be first and best.  “Out of Many, One.” E Pluibus Unum—isn’t that our motto?

          As much as we need societal transformation, we also need individual transformation. In Myss’ words, “we’re being given an opportunity to start anew.” How will we be different when the pandemic passes? How will our role in the world change because of it? What values have we lived by that now need to change? How will our new lifestyle reflect our new values?

          Transformation takes time, and world-wide we are being given time to reflect upon it. The world has come to a standstill for just this purpose. As we heal ourselves, as our personal transformation begins to unfold, and if we allow our soul to lead us through it, we will also affect the healing of our world. The sorrow of this moment, for the losses suffered, for the lives sacrificed, opens the door to joy if we will allow it to transform us.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane