Hello, dear Special Interest. You know, I realised this morning that it’s been nearly 4 weeks of social distancing for me. I got a cold on the 3rd March (today is the 28th March) and, out of respect for concerns about the incoming coronavirus, I cancelled my in-person meetings for a few days. Then my bookings gradually started to get picked off – one by one, from the 12th March. Between 3rd and 28th March I’ve left home (but not the village, where I’ve taken walks daily) as follows:
- 8th – an evening class (4 hours out)
- 11th – 1 hour training session and visit to a small shop (3 hours out)
- 13th – to see my parents (3 hours out)
- 15th – birthday lunch out and evening class (7 hours out)
- 18th – urgent 9 hour round trip to collect DD from uni (12 hours out)
= 28 hours away from home/village in the last 576h (24h x 24 days – 3rd and 28th March)
=548 hours at home/village since 3rd March
My car is gathering dust in the drive. What days. What mercies, really: to be here, safe for now. Holding the fort with two of my loved ones, with enough supplies (G has been out for shopping twice since restrictions came into play), and endless access to video calls with family, friends and colleagues. Outside, where the sun has been shining for days, woods and fields roll out endlessly, so our government-permitted ‘daily walks’ are exquisite.
Beyond the boundaries of our sweet village, things are very different for many. Am I volunteering to help at the front lines? Alas, no. But I am trying to turn my business round and remain financially self-sustaining… I’m starting to feel a bit conflicted.
You have all been asked to stay at home. Be at home for now.
It’s been nearly four weeks!
Feeling the stir..?
I am enjoying the new routines, and not being so physically exhausted. But yes, maybe I am starting to miss the stimulation? Time to dig in?
Life’s what you make it, so let’s make it right…
Sorry. I think that was me, not you….Can’t concentrate today because I’m in company…
Let’s read.
Wait. I have one more thing to say. THE WHEELS ARE COMING OFF THIS WORLD. COMING OFF, I TELL YOU. And within this all, the battle of STO vs STS (service to others/self) is raging at full pace. The STO-minded people are excelling themselves: NHS staff, key workers, NZ govt, community volunteers. The spirit of love, selflessness and mutual care is extraordinary. A network has sprung up in the village here and partnered with a local shop: vulnerable people in the village can order shopping from the shop and village volunteers will collect it and take it to their doorstep.
On the other hand, the STS-minded people are going wild: NHS staff are being assaulted or having their NHS id stolen; people are going into hospitals to steal supplies; the UK government just handed billions of public money to corporations; the US president has insisted he wants people to pack the churches on Easter Sunday (12th April); angry people are coughing at strangers in the street; East Asian people, including nurses, are receiving abuse – as if personally responsible for this (while data is starting to show that CV19 may have started in the US, which didn’t stop Trump calling it the “Chinese virus” and fuelling xenophobia); our PM, Health Secretary and Chief Medical Officer all have coronavirus and are claiming they can just carry on running the country from home (“It’s just a flesh wound..”); a 17 year old with acute Covid-19 symptoms is turned away from a US hospital for lack of insurance and dies on the way to the public hospital; UK doctors were instructed (before a govt u-turn) not to consider learning disabled or autistic people with CV19 for priority care in ITU; fake news is rife; the UK government has offered financial support but it won’t be accessible in time to protect people, and it entirely favours large corporates; the UK govt lied that it ‘missed the email’ from the Europe Commission about participating in the mass procurement of ventilators (the UK was actually party to all the meetings in which this was discussed)… And yesterday, 900 people died in Italy! We’re turning the Excel Centre in to a literal f-ing hospital for 4000 people – 2 rooms, each 1km long, are to be filled with beds. A warehouse in Birmingham airport is being prepared as a morgue for up to 12000 bodies.
Hey. Hey, you. Softly. We hear you. Softly with yourself. We know. And there is so very much more.
We are seeing a ‘reset’ of sorts. We say ‘of sorts’ because it is still not clear where it is heading.
What we do know though, is that it is really important at this time for you, for everyone, to keep looking up and over – to the other side of the stream. This ‘other side of the stream’ exercise (of earlier in the week) is not just about you manifesting your dreams, sweet one. Though you are always welcome to. Always. This is about you all ‘landing’ a system upgrade, as you have collectively been working on and anticipating for years. Remember 2012?
A system upgrade.
A system upgrade. So set your thoughts on the incoming iOS, and not on the outgoing one. Ok?
This is the ‘sensing the delicacy of heaven on Earth’ stuff too, right?
Exactly. If you can think of it more neutrally, as a system upgrade seeking to download, you will be in a different space. You are invited to hold a state of ‘anticipation’.
Anticipation of…?
The Good.
Ok. Nice. Tell me more.
Imagine: The Good iOS is seeking to download itself into The Matrix of human existence. If you were an actor (in this ‘film’) who could see that this was happening, how would you act?
Emboldened. Hopeful. Rock-steady. Alert. Poised…
That’s it. That’s exactly it. Be that actor.
Now shall we read?
Yes. Ty.
*****
Brilliant. I love this writing/reading/writing process. The chapter’s theme is akin to ‘anticipation’: readiness.
READINESS, MINDFULNESS: The important thing in our understanding is to have a smooth, free-thinking way of observation. We have to think and to observe things without stagnation. We should accept things as they are without difficulty. Our mind should be soft and open enough to understand things as they are. When our thinking is soft, it is called imperturbable thinking. This kind of thinking is always stable. It is called mindfulness. Thinking which is divided in many ways is not true thinking. Concentration should be present in our thinking. This is mindfulness. Whether you have an object or not, your mind should be stable and your mind should not be divided. This is zazen. … Wisdom is not something to learn. Wisdom is something which will come out of your mindfulness. So the point is to be ready for observing things, and to be ready for thinking. This is called emptiness of your mind. Emptiness is nothing but the practice of zazen. Zen Mind p115
So, essentially, mindfulness is about remaining in a soft, smooth, free-thinking frame of mind, to be ready for observing and to be ready for thinking. It’s a kind of pre-thought, empty, ready state – stable and not divided.
You could almost call it: ‘Emboldened. Hopeful. Rock-steady. Alert. Poised…’
Ha! You could. Abraham talks about ‘being ready to be ready to be ready’. If I’m 100% honest, I need to admit I’ve never fully felt it or got it…
Think of that actor who knows the Good iOS is coming. Look how poised she is. Do you know the Good iOS is coming? Do you live your days by that knowledge?
That’s a really good point. And the answer is… I’ve spent some 26 years with full knowledge that we are definitively evolving. Bringing up my children showed me that we are evolving fast. I know this to be true. Do I live by this? Do I share this perspective? Not truly. A little bit. But often, I just keep quiet. It doesn’t seem to be a popular perspective. People can be quite judgmental when I speak from this knowing. So I learnt not to. And also, life humbled me enough to teach me to allow people to be where they are without my ‘interventions’. Also, I tired of what I called my Cassandra syndrome: predicting something, being dismissed out of hand as an idiot and then after the event, people coming back and saying, “Oh yeah, that’s funny, I remember you saying…” (I’ve noticed others online starting to talk about feeling like Cassandra. I guess those of us who are intuitive/HSP/autistic are receiving a lot of data these days.)
Also, to be frank, there’s not much comfort in kicking back and saying, “Hey, I can see the future. Man, it’s golden!” when the old system is cracking and crumbling and it’s causing shock, suffering and dismay. And it’s not like it’s merely a case of ‘the old system falling away and a new one being born’. The old system has gone rogue, man! Rogue, I tell you. It’s gone full psychopath at an institutional level in this country. And I KNOW this from what I saw when I was unwell and on state benefits. The degree of establishment cruelty towards our vulnerable people is insane. Maybe one good thing to come out of this situation is the number of people who will suddenly become reliant on the state system and finally find out how punitive it is and have enough energy/astonishment in them to raise awareness. As people, to their horror and chagrin, turn to the benefits system for help in the CV19 turmoil, they will find out that the so-called ‘benefit scroungers’ are systematically forced into penury by a system designed to put a throttle hold round the necks of the poor and vulnerable and disabled – and people will be shocked. I hope.
We hear you. And so. And so. And so… Instead of ‘kicking back’ and letting the good times roll in, what does feel coherent to you?
I guess it’s that readiness. It’s easy to be ready to welcome and usher in new systems in the mild times. But how about maintaining that steady, stable, anticipatory mindset … as the Titanic sinks? No, as the final battles are waged?
There’s no need to name what’s ‘happening’ as it’s hard to get full sight of that. The role is..?
Anticipation. Readiness. Emboldened. Hopeful. Rock-steady. Alert. Poised…
Like you are expecting better days.
Like you can see the cavalry coming in for the rescue.
The main learning today is this: remain mindful; don’t get swept up in divided thinking (good/bad – heaven/hell); hold readiness, poise, anticipation – as a practice. Just practise this. Trust us. Just play the actor who knows the Good iOS is downloading. Play that actor. See the solution on the horizon. See it with your eyes and heart, even when and if others can’t. Play that scene, again and again and again.
See the solution on the horizon