Tag: virus

Exiting the Chrysalis

Leana LovejoyLeave a comment

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I have spent countless hours observing caterpillars, chrysalis and butterflies.  I have witnessed the challenge, the risk and the glory of metamorphosis.  Each transition is difficult – when the caterpillar hatches it is fine food for birds, lizards and other critters.  As they grow into adulthood, the caterpillar needs to find a safe place to cocoon.  This is not an easy search for such a small being, and there are many hazards on the way.  Once again, they can be eaten by birds, or other creatures, crushed by man or animal or run out of time in their quest.

When the caterpillar finds a suitable place (or unsuitable, time will tell, a Monarch caterpillar once made its chrysalis on a hinge and almost made it until an unwitting guest closed the door… sadly…) I digress – It attaches to the wall.  It needs to hold on in order to let go. That always tickles me to say, paradoxes are my thing!  Then comes the intense part as the caterpillar’s body seems to dissolve.  Sometimes they just don’t make it through this process, it can’t be easy.  If they do make it then they become another kind of being.  A being stopped in time.  Some of them have little faces, others look like dangly jade earrings but all of them are specialized and precise.  For in some period of time, from a couple of weeks to a couple of years, the butterfly will emerge.

The monarch butterfly emerging is a miracle of nature I’m overawed to have witnessed many times.  As the jade green chrysalis approaches hatching time, the skin begins to become transparent and the butterfly inside is seen as a kind of origami puzzle.  When it breaks out of the cocoon it is a fragile being.  It takes time to dry off its wings and is very vulnerable for even a gust of wind can knock it to the ground and its wings will deform.  They can’t take off yet so are at the mercy of any nearby bird.  And yet, many of them flutter happily (I project) into the sunlight.  Butterflies can’t fly in cold weather so they are always beacons of springtime.

Once they are aloft they have two activities to fulfill.  They sip nectar and aid in pollination as a side effect.  They make love and procreate.  I once watched a monarch butterfly couple do their coupling for almost an hour.  When it was complete, he (I imagine, perhaps wrongly) lifted her up and flew her up to a branch where they rested for a while.  It’s a short life, but valuable for sure.

Why am I rambling about this right now?  We’re quarantined to be safe from the corona virus, we’re watching our world come to a standstill.  We are cocooned.  It is a challenge perhaps the biggest challenge of our short lives.  Life, as we imagined it was, has ceased to be.  We have let go, collectively and individually.  We have let go of activity for the most part.  We’re not allowed to gather or recreate together.  It’s very strange.  It seems unnatural.  For those of us who have meditated and vision quested it is not difficult but most people have spent their lives avoiding being alone and quiet and listening to their inner voice.

What’s next?  I imagine us, like the butterfly, emerging slowly from this cocoon.  Taking it one tiny step at a time, into the sunlight.  Everything has shifted and I hope that we can collectively make more loving choices as we recreate our systems to better serve humanity and our ecosystem.  There are some important things each of us can do to contribute and “be the change”.  We can get comfortable with ourselves, honest and true and be clear on what we stand for.  I stand for love, for caring, for holding each other up with nobody left behind.  I think a basic universal income and guaranteed housing would be a fantastic place to start.  All the money spent on the war machine can be turned to providing that and health care, education and funding for the arts.  Animal agriculture should be ended and hemp and cannabis farms allowed to prosper and provide.

The sky is the limit!  What kind of world do you want to live in?  Keep marinating in your cocoon and we can discover that together….I love you!

The Jewel in the Virus

Leana Lovejoy1 Comment

A very well known Tibetan mantra is” Om mani padme hum” which translates roughly to “the jewel within the lotus” and is a message to let the “mud” of life feed and nurture the beautiful sacred flower – the lotus.  There are many ways to translate this mantra, but I am uplifted by this interpretation.  Scholars, beware I’m not here to debate, and am not clinging to my perspective either, I may well be getting this wrong. Still, on the path of higher truth, being wrong is also good – it leads to humility, which circles right back to the meaning of the mantra.

A couple of weeks ago I was sick in bed for 3 full weeks.  One day I was up, the next, flat as a pancake burning with fever. Interestingly it’s quite big news right now as the media is using the latest viral infection as a huge fear tactic (everyone has heard of the Corona virus by now, I’m sure).  I decided to consider this a time to purge, physically and emotionally from the pressures of the last year.  It was a year of big challenges, lots of loss and transformation, most of it seemingly unwanted.  Ahhhh, surrender, accept, let go…. I know all the words, I’ve said them many times, but wow I was in the big shredder and coping was sometimes out of my range.  (there’s the humility!)

Just as some of the bigger issues in my life were working out and things were resolving better than I hoped — it hit, the waves of nausea, a high fever and complete fatigue.  I was grounded.  The timing was so perfect, I could acknowledge that, I had no pressing projects or even engagements on my calendar so I just coped.  I took my temperature a lot, and watched the fever just linger and linger. I let shows just run on Netflix, which gave me some comfort and a bit of false companionship.  Nobody wanted to visit, friends and neighbors dropped supplies on the porch, and who could blame them, I didn’t want to pass this along.  Still, more than a little bit of self-pity crept in.  I remembered my two year illness of 2002 and worked to keep myself from falling into despair.

Then, as it started easing up I felt some new lightness.  I noticed that old joint pains were gone which felt fantastic, and imagined that I was letting go of  old emotions and ideas that had lingered in my body for too long.  That felt good, I know how to meditate, I know how to be with my feelings, or so I told myself. As the healing screeched to a standstill I groggily recognized the opportunity to witness some inner dialog that I just don’t want to have anymore, which is the main purpose of a vision quest.  It’s a conscious decision to stand still and take a good look around in our often neglected inner landscape.  It is so easy to be distracted from ourselves, there is always something apparently more compelling to do besides roto-rooter our emotional and spiritual bodies.  My being wasn’t having that.  Once again there were no distractions possible.  I didn’t have the energy to even read a book.  What is the message?  Standing still calls for a lot of things including listening to the “small, still voice within”.   I generally experience this as a loud voice but apparently there has always been more, beneath and beyond the title pages.  This is where I reached.

Wallowing in self pity doesn’t do much for the spirit, or indeed the body’s immune system.  Healthy mind, healthy body, right?  Having the body rendered useless does send a message of surrender, and seems to force negative emotions to the surface to be recognized, processed and ultimately accepted.  Loved?  Appreciated?  This is the holy grail, and PhD of spiritual work. As this flu experience has subsided and my life has returned to a semblance of its “normal” routines I want to hold on to the precious jewels in the lotus of the illness.  Being in the middle of it is painfully challenging even staying positive and grateful, and sending love to my shadow it was all I could do to just get through the day.  Nighttime was worse since sleep was almost impossible until I propped myself and slept in a more upright position.  This virus wasn’t going to let go until I learned what I needed to learn.

I’ve been known to say “no mud, no lotus” from time to time.  The darkness is a rich place, so my latest mission is to enjoy it, or at the very least to drop some of my resistance to it.  To be really clear, that doesn’t relieve us of the commitment to honor our body and build our immune systems to stay healthy, so my higher self says…. healthy mud makes for a bigger lotus!  Be well, stay grateful and drink your green juice…. I love you!