Covid 19 Reflections

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID 19, a pandemic. It had been identified as a member of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) Corona viruses in December 2019 that can cause illness in both animals and humans.

We have got used to seeing the emblazoned Sputnik shape of the virus as a backdrop to our newscasters on TV, constantly reminding us an invisible killer monster  is on the loose. However, its' real size is smaller than a pin-prick. It cannot be seen with the naked eye and can only be observed through an electron microscope, a type of microscope capable of magnifying a particle up to 1 million times. For example, a respiratory droplet is 5-10 µm (microns) and this particular virus is 0.1-0.5 µm in size and yet it has been able to stop humanity’s activities in their tracks. How it emerged to become a life-threatening pandemic is a matter of conjecture that includes a Pandora’s box of unsubstantiated theories. 

Take a look at the relative size of familiar particles compared with the Covid 19 virus, where it can be seen here in high resolution. 

So was it simply a product of nature as suggested by some naturalists? Or was it caused by mankind’s ever-increasing expansion into natural environments restricting the movements of earth’s wild creatures depleting and destroying their ranges and homes. Could forcing them to come into close contact with humans to find food and sustenance create the ideal conditions for viruses to  cross over from animals to humans? 

Or has the virus emerged from the wet meat markets of exotic wild animals in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei Province? Many health experts believe that the new strain of coronavirus likely originated in bats or pangolins that are sold at such markets. Or was Covid 19 man-made in a premeditated effort to reduce the negative effects that more than 8 billion people are having on the planet and to allow evil-intentioned individuals to create sinister vaccines to inject a control mechanism in those who survive it? Whoa! The question is, could truth be stranger than fiction?

The mystery illness first came to light in Wuhan, an area  in China that had been settled for over 3500 years. Initially, it grew up as two separate cities, Wuchang on the southern bank of the mighty Yangtze River and Hankou on the northern side. In 1926, it was decided to merge the two cities to create a new capital for Nationalist China and it was proclaimed Wuhan on the first day of the year of 1927.

Today Wuhan is a city of 11.8 million people. An Ophthalmologist, Li Wenliang, a doctor who specialized in treating eye disorders and diseases, tried to warn his colleagues on 30 December 2019 at the Wuhan Central Hospital that test results revealed he had  contracted an unknown virus. Instead, police warned him to stop making false comments. He was only 34 years old when he died as a patient in the hospital less than a week later.

As people started getting very sick, unresponsive to treatment, and dying, Chinese authorities were made aware there was indeed some deadly virus at large and an official lock-down of the city came into effect on 23 January 2020. Stringent measures were implemented completely sealing off Wuhan from the rest of the world and no-one was permitted to enter or leave. It was too late.

Seemingly overnight, undercover (in a human host), the virus had already passed over international borders spreading at lightning speed across the planet. This quickly resulted in further lockdowns instituted by governments one after another (with very few exceptions) bringing an abrupt halt to life as we knew it and all humanity's unconscious and unconscionable, frenetic ways of being and doing.

It has become an unprecedented event no-one would have believed could happen on the 21^st century stage of modern day human presence. 

The media has had a field day ramping up the hype of every symptom and effect of the disease, exploiting every opportunity, to repetitively disclose Covid 19's frightening outcomes. Many folks have been reduced to a state of panic, held hostage by their fears.

While viruses need hosts in which to survive and multiply, they can only impact our heath when our inner doctor, our immune system, is weakened.

"It's not about the power of the bug, it's about the vitality of the host." Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895)

Fearful thoughts and feelings trigger our nervous system switching it into  fight, flight or freeze mode, which is ultimately responsible for weakening our immunity. When our para-sympathetic system is active and we are calm, our bodies can rest and repair. This normally happens when we are in a joyful, happy, loving or peaceful state or resting or sleeping or in a state of meditation.

Once Covid 19 was termed a global disaster, daily news reports of new cases and death statistics became a captivating spectacle relentlessly dominating airwaves and TV screens. For anxious listeners/viewers who already had compromised immune systems it was likely to make them feel more fearful and vulnerable than healthy individuals. We are also inclined to ignore the extremely high recovery rate and instead, become caught up in the  constant negativity swirling around concerned and affected people and various media interactions.

Masks are isolating - not being able hug and kiss loved ones and friends in greeting and also irritating – as we frequently fail to recognise someone behind a mask. So many freedoms taken for granted have been curtailed by Covid 19. However, in the face of much controversy I feel it’s best to err on the safe side and submit to the required protocols for everyone’s sake, including our own. It is possible that one day we may look back and see this whole pandemic event from a different perspective. Right now, it is not yet over!

Imagine if Covid 19 had happened to us before the age of the myriad of technologies that have helped us globally to stay in touch and have up to the minute engagements with people anywhere and everywhere on the face of the earth. Just a short while ago, back in the nineties, scarcely 2 decades ago, this would not have been the case.

While international travel has almost come to a standstill, DSTV News channels, the internet, cellphones, WhatsApp, Google, Zoom meetings and the like have enabled millions of people, families and friends in different towns and countries to see and speak to each other, keep businesses going and invent new and better ways of working, to collaborate and organize on a country-wide and even, global scale.

The Covid 19 virus has also forced millions of people to slow down, to re-evaluate what’s important, what really matters to them. Family units are having time to just be together. Individuals in isolation are realizing how important human interaction is. Many folks have realised not to take one another for granted. We’ve all been reminded, tomorrow is not guaranteed, ever.

Perhaps it is discovering, not to love things that can’t love you back. We have had time to sit and just be with ourselves, reflect and contemplate, to listen to our hearts and to consider what the universe, our higher self, God, whatever your spiritual concept is, might so compellingly be trying to communicate to us and, to extend our understanding beyond our restricted linear thinking.

It has also been a time to attend to things that so often we never get to in our busy lives. Maybe Covid 19 has taught us some important practical lessons like why we shouldn’t live on credit, on money we haven’t earned yet, to live within our means. Not only is debt debilitating as it too easily becomes a habit, a way of life, making living above and beyond our pay check, difficult to resist, but collectively, it imposes inordinate demands on our planet. In effect, it’s stealing resources from tomorrows’ children that haven’t been born yet.

The Covid 19 virus has shown us it is no respecter of persons;  industry executives, royalty, politicians, housewives, grandfathers, sportsmen, doctors and nurses, the rich and famous, the highly educated, the poor and uneducated, the homeless, the young and old, black, white, yellow, brown, pink – no-one has been given a “get home free” card. Everyone is as risk, although some more than others.

Let’s face it, humanity as a whole has been running around like crazies hell bent on destruction. Our mindless daily rituals run mostly on auto-pilot while we are consumed with superficialities taking far too much for granted and extracting from the planet far more than is sustainable.

Do we really think we can carry on as we are and survive the mass extinction we are bringing to every other species on the planet without it affecting us?

Covid 19 sends a Message from Nature 

Scientists and philosophers have been telling us for decades – yes decades, we can’t keep on doing what we’re doing. The earth itself has started sending us increasingly powerful messages via volcanos, tsunamis, floods, wildfires, famines, polar ice melting and sea levels rising – hey humans, you are upsetting the natural balance of things! And still, humanity carries on with business as usual, that is, until now!

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. That is because, in the final analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. – Max Planck, Quantum Physicist

Extreme Weather Worldwide

Quantum science is revealing to us everything is connected. What does this mean? Here is one pertinent example. The Earth has a pulse. In 1952, Winfried Otto Schumann discovered lightning strikes across the planet about 44 times a second. This creates waves that bathe the earth in energy measured in hertz, a magnetic frequency of 7.83 Hz. It has been named the Schuman Resonance.

When someone meditates or falls into a relaxing dreamy or sleepy state it is possible to attain an alpha/theta magnetic brainwave frequency of 7.83 Hz. 

It has been proven by scientific experiments that tuning into 7.83 Hz, the planet's own magnetic frequency, people experience benefits like enhanced learning/memory, body rejuvenation, balance, improved stress tolerance, anti-jetlag and grounding. It is also the frequency at which cell regeneration and healing happens.

As we mimic the frequency of earth we become intrinsically in sync with the very pulse of life itself, the fundamental essence of existence. It heals the earth and it heals us too.

So as losses mount – people are dying, many isolated from their families in hospitals and others alone at home. – loved ones of someone, people losing jobs, businesses collapsing, governments admitting they don’t have the resources to deal with this unexpected visitation on the global scene - Humanity is in unchartered territory. A nuclear world war is possibly the only more frightening thing to contemplate than the effects this unprecedented wide-spread infection is having and the permutations it is continually presenting, provocatively staying one step ahead of the scientific experts as if it has a mind of its own. 

“The day Science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade…than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” Nicola Tesla

Is it possible, an earnest message is reverberating into human consciousness from nature, in the form of a minute, invisible virus, Covid 19?

With virtually every country in some stage of lockdown now is the time to ask ourselves some hard questions.  What have we done to our planet, how have we been treating our Earth mother who sustains all of us? What have we been putting her through? It’s as if there are no constraints on plundering her resources and we just expect her to suck up relentless abuse without any reaction. What does this say about us, the human race?

Is it possible that most of us are living from the outside in instead of the inside out? We think that what we have is more important than who we are? If we reversed that, what would that feel like? What would that look like? Maybe our values are all screwed up. Perhaps we need to consider the value of things we can’t own like a starlit sky, a magnificent sunset, a rainbow, a snow-covered mountain, children’s laughter, a lover’s kiss, a joyous welcome from a family pet.

So many things more than material possessions give life its juiciness. None of the stuff we can touch and hold, putting so much store on for our identity, can we take with us when we die. If we allowed happiness, a sense of contentment and gratitude  to come from a place inside of us and not from what we owned, we might possibly pursue a different kind of wealth than the sort so fervently bought with bank notes which in many instances comes with great cost to our personal life, vulnerable groups and minorities, our environment and ultimately our planet.

Many things in our world today have to change - there has to be more equality - people need to live more simply so that others can simply live. The thoughtless excesses of first world countries and the waste they dispose of, could supply third world countries with all their basic necessities. A shocking 70% of the world population of 8 billion people has no job security, no health insurance, no food security, no permanent shelter. The world middle class is highly privileged in comparison. The top echelon of 2% has more money than they could spend in 100 lifetimes. What for? They can’t take it with them! Does exploiting the many for the benefit of the few really work in the long run?

As Human Beings, it is incumbent on us to be more loving and giving and forgiving, for starters, beginning with ourselves. Why? Because there is a cycle of having and giving and sustaining and receiving so we can give again. This is the cycle, the reciprocity of life and it applies to our planet too. It can’t do all the giving even if we really thought it could. At the quantum level, all life is interconnected and guided by a higher intelligence. Nature is a prime example. It’s been doing this successfully for millions of years and its processes are now so complex, we are still far from understanding how they really work. All of our interactions with Mother Earth are clumsy in comparison. 

We are made of earth and stars, of light and energy, a drop in the ocean and the ocean in one drop. We still have to grasp this, what it means. Our actions have far-reaching consequences (for humanity most of all) because we have become an overwhelming force on Earth. Our planet has been evolving for eons and humanity is solely here to do that too, to express the soul through a physical body, the eternal and indestructible in the temporary and material.

Globally, we ARE becoming more conservation conscious and many companies and individuals are finding solutions to counter the excessive and manipulative exploitation of earth’s finite natural resources and to protect the wild untamed places and threatened species both wild life and plants. Charities reach across the globe to assist the underprivileged and needy for every reason one can think of.  

There is still a good amount of catch-up to be done. We are all called upon to do some kind, considerate, loving thing to make a difference. It's why we're here! Giant Corporates had better start changing the way they do things – behind their stylish logos, they are people too.  Governments had better get their acts together and hold themselves accountable - they are people too. It's time to WAKE-UP! It’s way past time to start tending the garden instead of fighting over the turf!

This Covid 19 coronavirus has shown a seemingly insignificant little molecular structure to be more powerful than the most powerful person or group of people on earth, more powerful than a tsunami or an earthquake. 

Surely Nature has issued a clarion call. Covid 19 has wrecked more than enough havoc on our planet. The eventual outcome depends on whether humanity heeds the warning. In this instance, we really don’t want to wait until an asteroid knocks the human race off the planet – yes we’re all connected and Planet Earth can send messages out to its’ own – HELP, send help here - human virus out of control!

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
We are the change we seek.
Barak Obama

Worthwhile Link - Frontline Critical Care Alliance

---

Physicist and spiritual teacher Peter Russell is reputed to have put on his answering machine at one point something that said something to the effect of, "This is not an answering machine. It's a questioning machine. Who are you and what do you want?" After a brief pause, it continued. "In case you think these are trivial questions, most people come to Earth and leave it again without answering either one."

In reading this book and hearing our own reflections and those of the Sages, we hope you'll be inspired to take a fresh look at those questions for yourself. We invite you to deeply ponder what living a spiritually guided life would look like for you - and therefore, for our fragile world - in this time when it's up to us whether we will evolve our humanity or die by our own hands.
by Joan Z. Borysenko and Gordon Dveirin