COVID Mirroring

         I awoke one morning last week with the thought that the Corona virus is a mirror for humanity.  Its devastating spread mirrors humanity’s devastating approach to this planet we inhabit.

         Mirrors invite us to take a look at ourselves – hopefully an honest look.  I can square my shoulders and tighten my tummy as I face myself in the mirror – and may likely come away with the false reassurance that I’m looking good and don’t need to make changes.  Or I can stand sideways, relax the belly and see what is.  That honest perspective, painful as it is, invites me to re-consider how I approach the body I inhabit. 

         COVID mirroring, painful as it is, invites us to consider how we approach the planet we inhabit – its atmosphere, its waters, its land and soil, its forests and ecosystems – as well as how we approach all beings, with whom we share this planet.

         Corona virus sickens and kills its hosts.  We humans are doing the same to the earth – our host.  Corona produces a fever.  We humans are producing a planetary fever - global warming.

         The COVID mirror can show us beautiful things about ourselves – our heroism and heart.  It invites us to see our interdependence with all fellow inhabitants and with earth herself.  In this web of connection, we are a global community.  Whatever affects one, affects all.  COVID invites us to see this fundamental truth and to embrace our need to work together – in healthy harmony - as a global community. 

         We are not alone and we are not separate.  We are family.  We have a mother - and billions of siblings and countless cousins.

Let’s honestly peer

In COVID’S mirror.

Look not with fear.

Move toward revere.

Awakening to Interconnectedness

         In Pocketful of Miracles, Joan Borysenko, one of my favorite teachers, offers an inspiring message and a short meditation for each day of the year.  In the entry for February 21, she ties together themes of interconnectedness, beginner’s mind, mindfulness in the present moment, and opening to the flow of Love.

         “A man who had a near-death experience following a heart attack returned to his body, and the first thing he saw in the hospital room was a rose.  He experienced seeing a rose as for the first time, realizing that he was intimately connected to that flower.  Now, when he walks through the forest, he feels as though he is one with the trees.  He has realized directly his participation in the web of life.  The secret of happiness, he says, is twofold: to realize that all things are interconnected, and to send love along those connections.”

         Awakening to interconnectedness invites presence and awe in the moment-by-moment flow of Love, where all is one.