A purpose for epidemics!? I can feel some of you cringing at the thought upon reading this. But, yes, nature has intelligence, everything it does is on purpose. Mother Earth or Gaia is a living breathing entity with its own evolutionary prerogative and intelligence. Nothing in this universe is random or by accident. This is a metaphysical and universal fact.
What could be the reason for epidemics? Well, according to homeopathy acute episodes are an opportunity to release pressure from chronic illness. Homeopathy is a complete medicine unto itself with universal laws and principles guiding its science and practice. Unlike allopathic medicine which changes every few years (every few years you have new medicines and new practices), homeopathy has not changed in the past 200 years because it is deeply philosophical and is governed by universal laws like the one mentioned above– that everything in nature is on purpose and in line with the natural order of life.
In homeopathy, one of the universal laws is that acute illness occurs to release some pressure from chronic illness. Acute illnesses have a beginning and end–in some cases acute illnesses end in death, also a natural part of life. If you could think of a pressure cooker with the built up pressure being chronic disease, acute illness is a temporary release of some pressure, to ease the destruction brought on by chronic disease. Acute illness in individuals usually occur as infections– colds, flus, earaches, sore throats, coughs, etc. An epidemic is a collective acute, whereby the earth or mother nature is attempting to relieve some pressure from its own chronic disease by spreading infection through the masses. So what is mother earth’s chronic illness right now that it is attempting to bring some ease to through this epidemic? Human beings and our modern materialist life.
For the past 100 years, human beings have exploited, destroyed, burned, used up and essentially pillaged the planet. And look at what has happened with this current epidemic? Pollution has dramatically decreased in just a few weeks, major exploitive industries have come to a complete halt, people are at home resting, sleeping, being with family and loved ones. The whole globe has become united. People we normally ignore and take for granted (grocers, delivery personal, sanitation workers, farmers) are in our prayers and consciousness now more than ever before. People get together at the same time everyday in European countries to applaud their doctors and nurses. Mother earth is taking a much needed break from us, while reminding us who we are, that we are one family, every single one of us matters and while also putting us back in our rightful place. We are being asked to remember that we are both nothing and everything at the same time, that the part represents and affects the whole.
This is not to dismiss any of the suffering, fear, loss or grief that has come with this epidemic. In fact, it is my sincere belief that grief in particular is one of the teachings of this virus. We are being asked to grieve our collective decisions and abuse of our only home, mother earth. Some of us will lose loved ones, some of us will lose jobs, financial security, our homes, access to luxuries and creature comforts. We are all going to have to grieve at some point and our lives will be changed forever from this, if we allow ourselves to learn the lessons brought forth.
Below is a beautiful bio-spiritual musing by someone infected with the virus. However before reading it I wanted to share a personal anecdote with you.
About a week before things started to look serious here in California, I began to have some tightness in my lungs. I waited a few days to see how it would progress, but it didn’t. I would wake up every morning feeling okay and I would feel the tightness build up throughout the day and by the time I went to bed it was at its worse. I had a slight cough that I would try to force to help bring mucus out but to no avail. Around day 4 of the symptom, I made the decision to keep my kids home from school, which was 5 days before their school officially shut down. At this point I started to search for an explanation for my symptoms. Was I having allergies (I don’t have allergies), was I having pre-emptive anxiety (I do tend to pick up on subtle energies before everyone else does)? The chest tightness continued but never progressed to anything else, I had no fever, no other symptoms. Nonetheless, I was already quarantined before everyone else just in case. Around day 10, I decided it was perhaps a mold infestation that I had been suspecting for some time.* However, when the mold was cleared and I still had chest tightness with a feeling that now fluids were increasingly filling up my lungs, I decided to reach out to a group of homeopaths for help with my symptoms. Homeopaths and most people in the healing arts are notorious for being able to help and support everyone else but themselves.
The mentor of the group advised the following and it was exactly the medicine I needed: “Rena, think about all the grief in your life and see what comes up and forgive yourself. Let the tears flow. This will help the lungs. The fluids need to be released through the right channel. And think of redwoods**.” When I responded that “just reading that made me cry and that it was difficult to let myself do so while quarantined in 700 square feet with my husband and kids.” She replied “Yes. Suffocation. Have compassion for yourself. And all your oppression.” That night I did exactly as she advised, I cried. I woke up crying the next day. And I’m still crying. And would you believe that the chest tightness and the fluids in my lungs have been cleared?! Yes, cleared! I am still sitting with sadness and grief and I invite you to do so too. Here’s why?
In homeopathy, all diseases, all symptoms, all experiences have something to teach us. In homeopathy we are meant to look into the darkness within us not suppress it, before the darkness overwhelms us. This epidemic is shining a light on our collective shadows. It is asking us to dive deep within ourselves and to grieve our oppression and our abuse of life on earth. In homeopathy, if you do this voluntarily and willingly, you will not suffer the disease that is brought on to teach you this. So I extend my mentor’s advice to all of you. Sit with the truth that we have majorly fucked up as a people and civilization. And cry out the despair that this has brought onto the planet and to us. Let the tears flow for mother earth, or she may fill our lungs with her waters through this virus and teach us by force.
Virus musings day 5:
This virus is all about the lungs. I can feel the pressure, like a baby elephant sitting on my chest. Breathing itself seems to be on the ’to do’ list and the lungs don’t seem to be that fussed about organically filling. It is an effort.
Whole sentences are off the table now, as the air is needed for more basic things. I communicate with hand raises, nods and few words. I can now feel the glue-like substance at the bottom of my lungs. So this is what she’s made of, hello Ms.Corona: she’s a sticky, thick, unmoving mass which fills pockets up in the lungs that should have air in. Will enough pockets retain enough air, or not? It’s an interesting place in which to sit. The not knowing. I have highly scarred lungs from pneumonia as a baby and a diagnosed asthma, so I’m vulnerable.
Recording this pandemic somewhere (might as well be here) feels important to me, to try and make some sense of the landslide that contains our former understanding of life, as it slips away. To attempt to document the passage of time as these ‘panic-buy-to-ghost-town’ days descend. And to attempt to capture this, a birds eye view, while gasping through the glue that is Corona, feels apt. I’m not sitting on the sidelines or dancing in the kitchen at an isolation party. I can’t. But I can write.
The deeper medicine which I feel arising through this personal and global experience, seems to be about grief. The lungs have long been associated with grief and Ms.Corona invites, no, demands, us to sit very still indeed (even walking across the room is like scaling a mountain) and try to breathe through the ‘pollution’ deep in the lungs. Like sitting in a forest fire, trying to grab some oxygen. Or a traffic jam.
Ironically now and only now, the lungs of the world are beginning to fill, as the skies and the roads, the rivers and the seas clear of our rushing about. Somehow, the tables have entirely turned. The earth takes a nice deep breath and we’re now flapping about, gasping and flailing, like fish on the shore.
This is a pivotal moment. It’s not a world war, where we would still have ‘sides’, it is a whole world experience.
My prayer/hope, on my personal day 5, is that we might come through this with a new respect for the planet and for one another as a global family, bringing about a new balance. That we might begin to work WITH nature and find, collectively, as a people, ways to harness this bounty without the ‘rape and pillage’ approach. To give as much as we take, globally, country to country and person to person. To prioritise real time with our loved ones, to turn inwards towards our elderly, our children, our communities. To slow the fuck down.
But first, we need to grieve. We are being frogmarched by Ms.Corona to the very place within our own bodies which holds all our grief. Can you sit quietly and grieve? She might be coming to your house and then you’ll have to.
The speed of our lives, the demand we had put on the planet, ourselves, one another. It wasn’t sustainable was it? And it’s time to grieve it. To acknowledge the landslide. Our collective and individual mistakes. Where we went so utterly and completely wrong.
Perhaps before the reinventing of your small business, collating materials to relaunch, perhaps even before you rush into rescuing, slow down. Stop. Be bewildered. Feel the fear, the grief. Be empty.
Am I going to survive this? Are you? We don’t know yet. That uncertainty makes us transparent to one another. We are all emotionally naked now and are embarking upon the most unprecedented voyage of several generations, together. One people, trying to simply breathe.
(I’m doing deep breathing exercise, taking massive doses of everything from Vit C to lungwort tea and back again, so thanks to advisors, bless you, but this post is more a musing of my experience of Coronavirus than a cry for help or more solutions. And yes, I am sure it is CV, it has been diagnosed).
Heed the call of our mother and be well!
Foot Notes
*We had about 24 hours of real fright whereby we were going to have to evacuate the house for several days to fix the infestation. The feeling of being a refugee and homeless during a quarantine to boot was terrifying for me. Luckily the infestation wasn’t as bad as suspected and we returned home within a few hours. But guess what?the first thing I packed was?! My homeopathic pharmacy! All of it! Homeopathy is Heaven Sent and amongst my greatest guides and allies in this life Alhamdullah.
**Redwoods are the largest trees and amongst the oldest on the planet. They are major oxygen producers, human allies and have witnessed much abuse of life, particularly native life. I have always resonated with Redwoods, see my instagram post from about a year ago.