The world has mostly come to a grinding halt over the past two weeks. By now you'll have heard of the pandemic causing virus known to most of us simply as the Coronavirus. A disease that had its origins in China and has now spread to nearly every single place on this precious planet of ours. People are getting sick, some of those people are dying, and the very foundation of our society is showing its weakness. This weakness is the very thing that during good times we view as our greatness: our vast empire that encompasses the entirety of our planet.
By now many of the members of our global empire have begun to question the legitimacy of such a way of life. Is it smart to live in a way that ensures that when one community gets sick that sickness has a means of escape that covers the entire globe? Why have we chosen a way of life that leaves so many of us so helpless in the face of these crises? Was it a conscious choice on our part? Or like so many other aspects of our life was it simply happenstance that we came to be here? Why toilet paper? I have been asking these very questions for a long time throughout my life and I am happy to welcome the newcomers to the party.
Our civilization is sick, and while I am a forever optimist that believes in the good that we are capable of, I have my doubts that we will make it through this and learn any lessons about our future. We have the perfect moment right now to take a big, deep breath and refelct on how we have been behaving towards our Earth, towards the plants and animals that inhabit this space with us, and toward one another. We can all, each and every last one of us, make a commitment that when this all comes to an end that our slowing down will not have to. What if you had no alarm to wake up to besides the dawn chorus of the birds? What if you had time to sit down and drink your coffee at your table with your family instead of slugging it while you hurdle through space-time to do a job that you probably do not enjoy? What does all of this slowing down do to your peace of mind?
By most estimates, humans, in the way you and me look, have been around for 300,000 years. Modern Civilization and its fields of nutrient poor grain have been around roughly 12,000 years. Mechanical powered contraptions have only been around a few hundred. The smart phone you are probably reading this on came into existence in 2007. We have an evolutionary heritage spanning back hundreds of thousands of years that prepared our bodies to live in a manner that is fundamentally at odds with everything in the modern way of life. Nowhere in that time frame did humans evolve a neck that was meant to be hunched down so that the eyes could gaze at an object in your hand for up to 6 hours a day.
We desperately needed to be able to take a step back, lift our hunched necks up, and look at the stunning beauty of the world around us that is slowly unfolding day after day after day. Personally, I have been making an attempt to slow down my life for the past few years, and even through all of that trying my life is still moving at a million miles per hour. I am cherishing every moment of this situation that I am able to. We have been going on hikes, and runs, and making an extra special effort to imbibe as much good medicine that our Earth provides as we possibly can at this time. Drinking Chaga, and White Pine tea to help our immune systems stay strong. But even more than that I have been trying to just slow down, allow the fear to leave my presence and just enjoy this once in a lifetime opportunity that we Americans have.
If you are reading this right now, please join me in insisting that our chaos filled "normal" existence be turned down a few notches when all of this is over. We desperately need to find a way to spend more time with friends and family laughing, loving, and not stressing about money and things. The most important things around us are not our fancy cars or our big houses, but the people that make up our community. If you agree with this message please spread it far and wide.
Get plenty of sleep, be a clean individual, don't make out with strangers and in a while we will be able to hug our friends again and be closer to them than 6 feet. Cheers!
White Pine Needles are an amazing ally in these times.