I know you’re feeling it. Everyone is, in some configuration or other. For me, it’s taken a while to sink in—not just the idea but the realization that everything is on hold, indefinitely. We’re in this Covid limbo for the long haul. There is no planning for the foreseeable future because we just don’t know what that future will look like. Everything is on wait-and-see status. An apt title for this time is TBA: To Be Announced.
By the time we come out the other end, the past will be unrecognizable. So many things that used to be ‘normal’ will no longer exist. Our families and our social and emotional lives are being transformed. Economic and governmental structures are being rattled. The environment is continuing to recalibrate. Everything is shifting.
What if this is exactly what needed to happen for The Shift? There is an old saying, “In order for something to change, something’s gotta change.” We couldn’t just keep going along as we had been and still make any noticeable to adjustment to our systems, personal or cultural. It had to be big. And it couldn’t just be over a weekend. It had to last. Here we are.
It’s a lot to manage all at once. Most days I’m able to greet this with calm acceptance. Other days I’m sad and teary, or grouchy and irritable. Often it’s a mixed bag. The most important coping skill seems to be maintaining my attention on the present. This is an opportunity to reorganize my priorities. Not with obstacle-smashing goals, but with relaxed mindful intention. According to The Teachers, it’s helpful to create a space of freedom and ease, then see what comes into it.
Let go, be present, allow it.
Well stated and yes, hard to maintain the attention on the present moment. How do i continue to see the emotions which arise, one after the other and not weep with despair or disappointment? How can i acknowledge the fear or sadness of the losses felt by all the parting of Beings and hold it in a Vase of Light? Only by continuing to breath, One Breath At A Time, and allowing myself to feel each emotion. It is hard to feel so “Raw” for so long. I will persist, I will allow, I will trust, and I will hold Hope for what can be. Some times it is hard to dream, but I will keep trying.
xoxoxoxoxox
Yes “TBA” is really pretty accurate for these times.
Today is my 42nd wedding anniversary, my wife and I will spent it alone, no visits from children or grandchildren.
The whispers of life fill my heart leaving it empty.
I worry not about myself but those who call me ancestor.
I recognize that Mother Earth is resetting,
She is fixing Her course on what’s next.
I just want there to be room for my family.
And I’m afraid.
I look closer at everything,
My small yard contains what I now know, the insects are ravenous for a last meal eating all my flowers…
but the tomatoes give me promise, even though they are wilder than I have ever seen them before
And I am so afraid that I will not be able to share them with any one
Peace and Blessings Jennifer Shoals TY
Belated Happy Anniversary!
The current situation is asking us to really be in the present. I think most of us would say that is what we’ve being trying to do for most of our adult lives. It’s why we walk and meditate and practice mindfulness. But I think the added uncertainty about our physical future makes it all pretty hard to do. I’ve often marveled at the people who somehow managed to survive concentration camps or the soviet gulag with a sense of presence and spiritual gratitude.