Broadening the Covid Story

Lewis Mehl-Madrona is both a traditional Native American healer and a conventional doctor. What he says here in his book Coyote Wisdom has implications, I think, for our collective response to Covid, which seems to me to be binding everyone into one rigid, fear-based story, that is contradicted by the situations in eg Belarus and Japan, which have minimal or no lockdown, and miniscule deaths from Covid:

"Nature is plastic. Nature changes with us, as we change with nature. Everything is connected. Genetics changes with social interaction. Culture influences biology. Even enzyme kinetics drift with social movements. I mean to make the radical claim that there is no biology apart from culture. Our efforts to carve the world into separate academic disciplines have been futile and need to be reversed. I believe more sensitive future research will begin to reveal how cultural beliefs shape physiological responses and modulate the expression of genes, even turning some on and off. I believe we will come to see that genes are exquisitely responsive to what we do and how we live in community with others. I predict that this discovery of a new field of cultural genetics will be a hallmark of the 21st century into which we have now embarked."

HERD IMMUNITY and COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

There are always a number of layers - or stories - to an illness, and I think this applies collectively as well as individually. For science is a story no less than is the idea of burying a piece of meat to get rid of a verruca. And the stories science has around viruses and drugs with which to fight them depend, like the efficacy of all stories, on the spirit of the patient.

So maybe the winding down of this pandemic is dependent on where humanity has moved to in its spirit. This could well be a layer of the idea of 'herd immunity' that is not usually considered - the energetic level. On this level, there is a negotiation occurring between the collective consciousness of coronavirus and the collective consciousness of humanity: they are getting to know one another.

It is like when you start a new relationship. You don't really want to dive straight in at the deep end. You need time to let your spirits talk to each other, because they will decide whether you are going to be together or not. 

So this is maybe another way of looking at the idea of 'herd immunity': it is a bit of a hundredth monkey thing, where suddenly many people are unlikely to get the disease because the collective spirits of humans and of the virus have got to know each other. And that may well translate into antibody protection, but it may not have happened for the literal reason we think. And when people do fall ill from the virus, it will tend to be less severe. It will normalise. Just thinking out loud :)

WHERE ARE YOU ON THE MEDICINE WHEEL?

This might not make me very popular 🤣 but I have been wondering why it is that so many people in the Shamanic world are prepared to believe videos such as 'Plandemic' (a documentary recently taken down from youtube, purporting to show that behind Coronoavirus is a secret plan to control the world), whereas the average person in the street, as far as I can tell, isn't. They may even not be very polite about it.

Now you may notice that I have not made a judgment in either direction here, and as you know I never make those sorts of judgments, do I? 🤣 

So I have been pondering this, and thinking about the Medicine Wheel, and suddenly it seemed clearer. We can use systems such as these to box ourselves if we take them too literally, but if we treat it lightly, as a story, then it can serve us. 

And rather like Jung's 4 personality types, if you are strong in one element, you will often be less adept at the opposing element.

So I'd say my weakest element is, or used to be, Water or Feeling. Typical bloke. In my fifties that changed a lot, I had always been aware of a gap, so it is better than it used to be. But sometimes I leave feeling behind in my headlong rush, particularly when encountering opposition, and have to do a bit of catch-up, and sometimes some apologies, later.

So here comes a generalisation, which is that in the Shamanic world we often primarily value Fire/Spirit and Water/Feeling. And this means that we often undervalue Air/Theory and Earth/Physicality.

The world, and particularly Science, tends to be the other way round. In this respect, we are each the other's shadow, and it is important to become aware of this before we do any science-bashing.

So you can see, from this point of view, why Shamanic people might be more prepared than average to give credence to something that from the point of view of Air and Earth, doesn't add up very well, which the above documentary does not.

I was kind of despairing about this a few days ago, but with this Medicine Wheel perspective I feel happier about it. Yes, we value Feeling and Spirit, they are far too undervalued in the world and we are doing something very valuable in attempting to live from these qualities. But we often also need, by the same token, to encounter and develop Earth and Air.

As I said, I am making a generalisation which will not apply to a load of us. So where are you on the Wheel? And what do others think?

CORONAVIRUS: WHAT WOULD A TRADITIONAL HEALER MAKE OF IT?

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 I was wondering what traditional or 'alternative' medicine would make of this pandemic we are experiencing. For a start, there are thousands of such ways, in which treatment tends to be approached individually rather than collectively. That is why, IMO, methods like homeopathy fail in lab tests: it is administered individually, and the faith of both the patient and the homeopath plays an important part. (The placebo effect, by the way, is a dynamic thing, it shows that real healing is at work, that is not dependent on just chemical cause-and-effect.) 

Astrology fails under scientific testing also, and a good thing too. As Jung pointed out, it is like a trickster comes in when we ignore the sacred and subject our healing or divinatory arts to the profane methods of science. That is why a good healer will keep his/her medicine objects well wrapped up from prying eyes.

What is most important to remember, and what is often very difficult to see, is that science is a story about how things are. It is not 'the truth'. Even in its own terms, it knows that it models reality rather than describes reality itself. Reality is not knowable because it is not literal. Whereas we tend to be literal, we want to know exactly how things are.

There is always this divide between simple-minded people who take their culture's stories literally - whether those stories are about heaven and hell or about coronaviruses - and people who understand that they are just stories, albeit sometimes useful and descriptive, and indeed often sacred. All we can ever have is a shifting set of stories about the world, that reflect the underlying dreaming of a people.

So coronavirus is a story. A traditional healer would describe this sickness quite differently. It would begin with the Spirit. What is it in the Spirit of this people that so many of them are falling prey to this illness? And this in the context of understanding that every person will also get this sickness for a different reason, that is unique to them.

Why did Boris Johnson, a guy with a history of robust health, get this sickness to such an extent that his life was endangered? There is a mythological dimension when the king is ill. 

In the Parsifal myth, the Fisher King recovers when the question 'Whom does the Grail serve?' is asked. And the answer is that the Grail serves the king. In other words, the king needs to be a conduit for Spirit, so that Spirit can serve the kingdom. Maybe he will emerge with a deeper understanding of his job and role. Johnson was also, in a sense, a sacrifice, and maybe the people will be less badly affected than they might have been because he gave his health. The leader is profoundly and archetypally connected to the collective he serves.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk 
 

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The recovery from an illness begins with a re-alignment to Spirit. If we are deeply aligned to Spirit, we are more likely to be physically healthy. This is axiomatic for me. It's not always the case, and sometimes it may just be our time to go. And the nature of our collective disalignment can be read in the 'cure': the stopping of the world, and the effect that has had. Before the lockdown, the way the world was seemed inevitable, one possibility, one direction, a juggernaut. Now that we have stopped, new possibilities for a slower, more earth-friendly humanity seem to be emerging. And stopping means we are able to listen in ways we could not before. So this is one way of looking at this collective sickness: it arose because we were trapped in just one possibility, we were strangling ourselves, and we had forgotten how to listen.

So a traditional way of thinking might say we will get well collectively, not from social distancing and vaccines, which belong to another story, but by stopping and listening. "What is this world if full of care, we have not time to stand and stare."

Our modern solution to this illness is purely material. It will work, up to a point. But we are not being asked by the government or its medical advisers to reflect on who are we, that this Spirit of sickness has arisen among us? It is also asking us to reflect on our relationship with death. Death, for many of us, is an extinction, and to be avoided at all costs. This is also fuelling and exaggerating our response. Death is not truly a problem, it is a part of life, it is a homecoming, it is a return to that vastly bigger context about which we can know nothing while we are entranced by the apparent reality of this dream.

And social distancing, about which we have become so anxious and so moralising. Would a traditional healer recommend mass social distancing as part of his treatment? It seems hard to imagine. And maybe, in an opposites kind of way, and thinking 'story', it is our atomisation writ large. It is telling us that we need to find a new sense of community, along with the slowing and the listening and the reflection on death. 

And there is the name 'coronavirus' (Covid is just an abbreviation of this). Again, think 'story' and you will find a deeper truth. 'Corona' means garland, wreath, crown. And yes, we have allowed it to wear a crown, we have allowed it to rule us. It is the enemy to be defeated. When you turn someone or something into an enemy, you give it a lot of power. You allow it to define who you are by your opposition to it. As Nietzsche said, beware that in fighting monsters, you do not become one. We have set ourselves against nature, we fight her for her bounty, and insodoing we have become monstrous..

So we set ourselves against coronavirus, she is a form of life, yet we want to eradicate her, rather than find a partnership. The word 'virus' reflects this oppositional stance: it is from the Latin meaning slimy liquid or poison. So we really have created a monster out of this sickness: we call it 'the poison king' and do not even know that is what we are doing, because who investigates etymology, which is the story behind words? The collective unconscious knows these stories, however, and on that level we know exactly what we are doing.

So a traditional approach to a sickness such as we are experiencing might well involve this sort of investigation. As you can see, a lot can be unearthed that tells us so much about ourselves. This is how sickness can teach us. Sickness will keep teaching us so long as we are not aligned with Spirit. In the case of our culture, so long as we do not even believe that we have a Spirit. This is why there are so many hard-to-diagnose soul diseases like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and auto-immune diseases etc. The first question that may need to be asked in seeking a cure for the coronasickness is do we actually want to be well? And why?

THE BOGEYMEN BEHIND COVID 19

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If we are any kind of healer or teacher, then fundamental to that is that we have some kind of relationship with our shadow, with all those things in us that we are maybe ashamed of, or that keep us awake at 4 am. Otherwise we cannot be a clear channel for Spirit in our work, nor will we have the psychological insight to be of real help to people. This is the real preparation to be a healer, and it may take decades.

At times of crisis like this, which inevitably provoke the collective shadow, it is more important than ever that we are able to stand apart from that: it is collective and psychic and we will get drawn in if we do not have our wits about us. 

Not many people have the psychological strength to remain with their own darkness and fragility. That is why collectives create bogeymen. It creates a kind of stability and reassurance. Hence the witch-burnings in early Europe, Nazi anti-Semitism, and McCarthyism in the US. You see it also with Donald Trump - a fragile individual if ever there was - attempting to create bogeymen out of the Mexicans, the Muslims and the Chinese.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk 
 

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Whenever there is a major event that upsets our little world, you see the process at work, whether it was 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, or now with Covid 19. If Covid 19 was just a virus that had mutated, there would be nothing to carry the stress it has created. So, we are hearing, it was deliberately created by the Chinese, and somewhere Bill Gates and 5G were involved. Watch for Jeff Bezos to be dragged in too. It is pitiable and it is insane, but it is how collectives work, we should not be surprised.

What convinces people is not evidence, but other people's belief, because it is a herd thing. But from the point of view of the individual, it can seem like an epiphany, like they have had their eyes opened, balance has been restored, and it is everyone else who appears like a sheep. It has a lot in common with fundamentalist religion.

CORONAVIRUS and OUR COLLECTIVE JOURNEY ROUND THE MEDICINE WHEEL

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Coincidentally, I am re-reading the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. (I highly recommend the trilogy this book belongs to). It is set at that particular intersection where traditional tribal life was still being lived, but the modern world was starting to impinge. D’Arcy McNickle’s novel Wind from an Enemy Sky is similar, but set in North America rather than Africa.

I say coincidentally because of course Things Fall Apart is exactly what this coronavirus is doing to the world. In the book, there is a period of the year between the harvesting of the yams and the planting of the next crop where there is not much to do. Life in its usual busy sense come to a halt. For them, this is normal. For us, our world is built in such a way, it is so busy, so extraverted, so fragile for all its economic power, that a major recession is being brought about, that will probably take years to recover from, by what is still just a few weeks of stoppage.

“What is this world, if full of care, we have no time to stop and stare,” sang the Welsh hobo William Henry Davies. 

WH DAVIES

To stop and stare, amidst the anxiety of which there is no shortage, is I think what we are being asked to do.  It is in this sense a natural balancing that is occurring. But because we are so out of balance, the remedy is extreme. And it is a remedy that we are collectively choosing, it is not just happening ‘to’ us. No-one is forcing the governments to shut everything down. We could have just carried on as normal, but with a higher death count. The governments have chosen not to. The governments are, ultimately, ourselves, they are a function of the collective, as Tolstoy was at pains to point out in War and Peace. Is this out of care for the older and more vulnerable people, or because the body count would look bad when it comes to re-election, or out of an exaggerated fear of death and of the unknown? Who knows. Probably all of those reasons and more.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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What we do know is that collectively we have chosen this time to STOP, and therefore to align ourselves with what is within. An extreme of extraversion has produced its opposite, and I think this has an inevitability to it. Just as the boom times produce regular recessions, where we are forced to examine the imbalances of what has gone before. This seems to me to be the deepest reason that the world is stopping, and it has been our collective choice, as I am taking pains to point out! Somewhere, some deep part of our collective wants this. Hallelujah!

This is where, on the Medicine Wheel, healing begins: through the East, with an intervention from Spirit that we cannot directly cause, only prepare the ground for. That has been the coronavirus. We then have the choice whether to try and ignore that intervention, or to turn towards it. 

With that inward turning, we can begin to move round the Wheel: firstly to the South, to the place in us that is wounded, in avoidance of which life has become so frenetic. So this will be the next stage of the coronavirus stoppage (perhaps): a sense of the inner lack that has been driving our thoughtless, thankless, taking attitude to our Mother, the Earth, and therefore to ourselves, for we are part of her, we are nothing but her.

And that will lead to the West, the Earth: incarnating those inner realisations. It is already clear that many more people will work from home in the future: this is slower, more reflective, and puts less pressure on the environment through travel requirements. And then to the North, the gradual integration of these new ways of living into our philosophies, into the ways we understand the world.

THE MEDICINE WHEEL: A LOCKDOWN INVITATION

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 I've talked about and read about and thought about the Medicine Wheel, and I've had one outside my caravan, carrying my dream. But I haven't lived each direction/ element, one by one. The Medicine Wheel is a great Native American vision of life, dividing us into the 4 elements of Fire (Inspiration), Earth (Incarnation), Air (Mind) and Water (Emotion), and building relations between those elements and between the stages of life they represent, as well as the various animals that traditionally belong there. We have just had a new Moon in Aries, which is Fire, so for the next month I am going to be living the Fire Element. This is the East (in the universal wheel that I use) and represents the divine spark that begins life, it is imagination, inspiration, and the magical child. It is outside time, and is the colour yellow. So if you'd like to join me, you are welcome. Get yourself a stone from somewhere east, maybe paint it yellow, and begin to construct your Wheel. Think of all those times when something new has entered your life, that has changed who you are. Note the synchronicities that occur. Maybe chronicle them in the comments below.

My 1st synchronicity is this: I got 1/2 way through a programme about Eagles this evening before I remembered that the Eagle is an animal of the East. He soars high, and has a vast perspective. He has the infinite perspective of Spirit. I'll see you on the way!
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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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WHAT IS CORONA MEDICINE?

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This life, and the death that comes with it, are part of a bigger dream that encompasses both. This slow realisation lies behind the traditional yogic virtues of non-attachment, surrender to spirit, the lofty eagle perspective and the ability to chill on a level most of us can only dream about. And because there is this bigger dream, and we are currently enveloped in bodies, it means that what we can actually know is zilch, nothing - all is the Great Mystery. 

These ideas we often take so seriously about scientific truth and the earth being round and the importance of getting the Labour party in power and what is authentic Shamanism - all these are just stories we create to keep going, and we do need those stories, because they are all we have. 

But the stories we take really seriously need to be preposterous, and we shamans score well in that matter: we have these imaginary friends we talk to and we even quote what they say as unassailable truth (well, that's maybe where it starts to go a bit wrong 🤣) 

So where am I going with this? I began with wanting to say something (again!) about Coronavirus, and also talk about a book I've just read, The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western Imagination (thanks to the recently-suntanned Jez Hughes for that one). Note there is a free pdf for this book, which otherwise costs around £45.

I think I'll stay with the first topic. The secret to being read on the internet is to stick to 500 words, be entertaining and make your points concisely. Which I am not doing today :) 
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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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What I want to say is this: the government needs to stop fighting Coronavirus and let it take its course. Not just on the principle of living with other life forms, instead of trying to eradicate the troublesome ones, which shamans and anyone who loves the earth understands. (Now here is a thought: for the American Indians, the forms of life that were dangerous to us had powerful medicine also. So there is one to think about. Corona is technically a mildly pokey virus, but energetically clearly has something huge going on. So how can Corona heal us? Maybe she can wake us up to the fragility of our 'powerful' civilisation, that it can be dismantled in a matter of days! Now that is a strong medicine. Humility is its name. And she is also showing us that we are one interconnected humanity.)

No, the government also needs to stop fighting Coronavirus because death is not the worst thing that can happen. There is a trickster at work here: Coronavirus is midly pokey, yet we treat her like the Black Death. That says so much.

And that brings me back to the start. In our culture we have a terror of death (look up Stephen Jenkinson on youtube for this, he is great.) The government is trying to reduce the number of deaths from Coronavirus by attempting to make the pandemic manageable (itself a laughable aim, life is not manageable), but in so doing it is shutting down the country. Look at the amount of suffering that austerity caused. That was nothing compared to what is coming now. I would happily give up my life if it meant life was liveable for those still on their earthwalk (deliberate shamanic cliche there 😂). 

Let me be plain: more people will die if we do not try to contain Coronavirus, because the NHS will not be able to cope with it all happening at once. But, in my opinion, that is a price worth paying, rather than something far worse than austerity occurring. But we are terrified of death, it is the great annhiliation, and this is skewing how the government sees the situation.

To me, this is common sense. It comes out of this sense of a bigger dream than life and death. And life teaches us to trust death, saying that if we stay with what is happening, on a deeper level we gradually learn to always trust what is coming next. It's as Tagore sang: "And because I love this life I know I shall love death as well." Life, in this sense, is a long preparation for death. 

Rabindranath Tagor

So come on Boris, let's get Coronavirus done! Let it happen. Don't let the cultural abomination of death (Read: 'Flattening the curve') stand in the way of the living!