It’s a tricky thing isn’t it. Have too hope much and your delusional, too little and you’re a cynic. What’s the balance? What’s the balance during a Pandemic? The pendulum is ever moving (as it always is in life), but now it seems to be able to swing so far into the closet of our deepest insecurities. Knocking them from the comfortable perch they relaxed on in the buried psyche.
If you, dear reader, are unconsciously buried in your psyche (ie: obsessively news reading), you are aware there is a virus that is spreading through the world. If you’re the fact-believing sort, it seems to be relatively inclusive; it doesn’t care what country you were born in, what color your skin is, age is definitely negociable…. it looks to be most interested in spreading throughout humanity. But for those that don’t know me, I am NOT an infectious disease expert – I just do a lot of yoga and writing. But I do know these above facts to be true. And I’m scared. I’m fearful. I’m semi-hoarding food (as discussed in previous post) and, yes, I have bought more toilet paper when I still had six rolls left.
Previous to my mind being jostled and taken for a spin with the fear of the ending of humanity as we know it, I was planning to deal with something that had been sitting with me the last few months. I wanted to act differently in the world and see what would happen. I was going to do this thing! Talk to this person face-to-face with honesty! Not hide behind my go-to’s of self-assurance and sarcasm. I would even say, that I held a torch for an outcome that didn’t seem likely, but I wanted to give this relation another chance for survival. Any survival that could be something other than being hooked up to a ventilator in my dark psyche. Plus, New York State is facing a ventilator shortage; so this effort really could have an enormous impact for the ailing populace. Karmic seeds, if you will allow me to go that far.
Because what’s more hopeful than trying again? Potentially failing, but… trying again.
So … Sure, I don’t want this virus to be what ends my physical existence. I’m hating that this uncertain disturbance has come and told everyone that what we thought was laying ahead of us is no longer. EVERYTHING. There is no such thing as planning or trying again until we get a handle on what is happening now.
By austerity, impurities of the body and senses are destroyed and occult powers gained
Sutras, book 2, 43
I’ve taken this note from the state of the world and I’ve been reflecting on how we’ve been living in and ON the world, how we’ve been treating our communities and the ones that we are not part of, and all we’ve been demanding of living in this complicated world and…. and, and, and…. Conclusive reckonings still seem somewhere in the distant future.
Where’s this tangible, hopeful silver-lining I speak of? This future on formulaic resolve. Because there has to be one, right? Sure, there has been the silver lining of long walks in the park with (proper amounts of social distancing and) Prince blaring in my earphones. But the abstract silver lining for humanity, post this calamity that has fallen upon the world, has yet to be seen. We’re still burning through the impurities that were here and destroying the systems that fail to provide for everyone.
The uncertainty of what lies ahead may be the only silver lining we can focus on. The unknown is the now … and our future.
So let’s keep burning. Holding torches for things we believe in and things we must set-alight to allow new powerful ideas to fester in our futures. A silver lining can be built; the composition just might not be silver. We’ll be constructing this liner anew, made with the freshest stardust.
roadside yogi 