When I arrived here on earth, I saw that this world I came into is sick. The adults around me seemed to think it’s all good. Almost 40 years later, something stopped parts of the madness that had been going on.

It is so very fascinating what has been happening around this virus.

It really puzzles me that not one of the disasters that have been and are still happening in the world managed to stop this massive machine of our ‘modern civilization’. This machine of endless consumerism and production, which is leaning on the false idea of ongoing economic growth and some ‘happiness’ somewhere outside ourselves (i.e. in the stuff we buy), has been bringing dis-ease of countless forms.

Yet, business carried on as usual … despite us rapidly loosing huge areas of natural landscape, despite countless wonderful animals going extinct every day, despite tons and tons of plastic in the oceans and toxic waste daily dumped who knows where. There are the animals we eat, most of them horribly abused, treated as commodity, as thing, with only profit in mind …

It carried on, despite the abuse of the earth, all plants and animals, and despite millions of people in some form of ‘modern slavery’, who suffer daily as they spend their entire lives working for ridiculously low wages, just to survive. The wheels just kept turning, well oiled by greed for power and profit, and misguided by the illusion that we humans are separate from nature. We are not. We are nature. If we disrespect and abuse the earth, we also ultimately abuse and disrespect ourselves.

Still on and on it rolled, causing a pandemic of depression amongst us, of alcoholism, addictions of all sorts, abuse, disconnection and countless stress-related serious diseases. The pandemic brought anxiety, obesity, despair, insomnia, loneliness, hunger, poverty, …. It all continued on, based on the outrageous and heartbreaking principle of our modern industry and economy, that profit and money, by definition, is valued higher than life itself, valued higher than Creation and the sacredness of life on earth! Human and natural resources have been exploited while their well-being was traded for the ‘well-being’ of the economy and huge corporations in power. If that is not a global disaster, than I don’t know what is …
There were and are countless reasons to stop what we are doing.

How beautiful that this lockdown is bringing the medicine of BEING instead of doing, some of this balm of just slowing down! So needed, so necessary, so healing … Remembering the maybe forgotten but probably well-know fact that we are human beings and not human doings. Out of just being, very naturally, emerges the doing once again, all by itself. It’s called inspiration, and so the waves continue, of being and doing/creating.
The space of being, before the next wave of ‘doing’, is needed as pause to reflect and see whether I am still aligned with what I believe in. A pause to be able to make a conscious choice that supports myself well and all life on earth.

If we thought we were well before the Corona story — we were not.
If we thought that this virus is the pandemic and the thing that’s dangerous right now — well, let’s think again. To me it appears like we have over a long, long time become the pandemic ourselves, and through our lifestyle have been making ourselves, each other and the world around us sick.

To me it seems essential for us all to remember that all life on earth is always precious, unique and sacred, and to make our choices accordingly.

The world we created has not been respecting the essential balance of the masculine and the feminine principles of life (in a tiny nutshell: doing and being, giving and receiving), a ‘law’ to which everything on this earth is subject to. All our ‘mainstream systems’ lack the valuable elements of the feminine qualities of life — the space where we wait, where there is softness and genuine caring, where we are held and nurtured, where we pause and rest, where we can receive ourselves and our intuition. The space of beingness. It is missing, as everything in this modern world is forever about doing, achieving, reaching goals, ‘hitting targets’, paying bills, soldering on along our busy roads of fast internet, fast food, fast living, steep carrier staircases and endless to-do lists.

We have for a long time been creating and living a massive imbalance of the masculine and feminine qualities of life. Any imbalance makes anythingsick; imbalance brings disease! This is what we have been experiencing in this society, dis-ease of countless forms.

Our society has largely been unwell, long before the Corona Virus …

• because many of us forgot that all life is sacred
• because many of us have stopped giving thanks to earth and nature that provide food, medicine, nourishment, resources, and other gifts in many ways, like the beauty of nature when we’re outside
• because we don’t have enough time to spend with our children
• because our children don’t have enough time to play and be
• because many have to sell their lifetime to do unfulfilling jobs that barely pay the bills
• because very few of us can live their passion and calling
• because our lifestyle destroys our very home, the earth
• because we are disconnected from nature
• because we don’t garden and grow our own food any more and dig our hands into the soil
• because we don’t dance and sing together any more, like we always have in the past
• because there is constant stress — to earn more, to buy more, to work more, to pay bills, to make a career and a ‘perfect home’, have a ‘perfect’ body, etc.
• because most of us are disconnected from the earth and our resources, from ourselves and our neighbours, from our bodies, our hearts, our passion, and from the cycles of life, of which we are an intrinsic part of
• because countless children are put on some kind of medication to be able to ‘deal with’ the ever more demanding schooling system
• because our society has institutionalized the caring for children and the caring for elders, as well as the homes for so called ‘peopled with disabilities’, from whom we can learn so much
• …

All of this is ‘fine’, as long as at some point we are able to see what’s been happening, recognize what’s not working and make different choices. Every story takes its turns and twists, and so has the journey of humanity taken the route it has. I try to practice acceptance around this where I can. And, generally speaking, acceptance brings consciousness of what’s going on. When I can become conscious of what’s been going on, I can ask myself if I agree or not, and make my (new) choice accordingly.

I believe that we are at a potent point in our shared history where we are collectively able to become conscious of what’s been going on, and make different choices, simply because we care, because we so choose and because we can. Choices that bring back well-being, happiness and balance to all life on earth.

For example it’s what I choose to buy and who I choose to support. What I buy is what I vote for. It is also what I choose to bring into this world, in all those various ways in which we are all bringing our gifts. It is what I choose to seed today, through my actions and intentions. There is immense power in conscious choice.

This time of lock down is gifting us with this essential pause, this space where we can reassess the path we’re on. Can we collectively reflect and truly become conscious of what’s been going on globally? Can we ask ourselves if we like to continue in this way?

I surely do pray, we can come to our senses, wake up and make different choices.

The time is now.

This article is also available on medium.com