LIVING WITH CORONAVIRUS

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 The Coronavirus is a new guest in our human house. We haven’t yet learned how to be around each other, so we humans are feeling discomfited. We live in a society where feeling discomfited is ‘bad’, for we have got used to the idea that technology will eventually rid us of anything uncomfortable or inconvenient. Instead of that discomfort being understood as part of the nature of life itself, and something that we can learn from.

The Coronavirus is a part of life. She is our unruly sister. If we take the approach of trying to ‘defeat’ her, as modern medicine frequently does, then we are taking up arms against life itself. And that can never work. 

Look what happened in the US when they tried to eradicate the Coyote: the animal’s response was to spread from part of the US to the whole country. Coyote is the trickster, and that was a perfect example. The trickster is a way life has of bringing us back into balance, by upsetting the rules we humans sometimes try to impose on life: if those rules are rigid, then they become a product of the narrow self, the ego, rather than Spirit. And Spirit, which is infinitely bigger and more powerful, will respond by undermining those rules.

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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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Coronavirus has come upon us quickly, and there has been no time to develop a vaccine or drugs that will kill her. So we are being forced to work with her. Governments are taking the approach that this epidemic is going to happen, but if we can delay it, it may not be so bad overall.This approach seems to me to have more respect for life, and is more in line with a traditional approach of working alongside, of finding a new balance, rather than trying to eradicate. 

The mentality of trying to defeat and destroy is rooted in the western attitude of conquering and exploiting nature, as though we are not part of her.Our sense of separation from nature has been growing for 3000 years, so this attitude is deep-rooted. It sets us against ourselves. We turn ourselves into ‘good’ bits and ‘bad’ bits. Shamanism sees life as an indivisible whole in which we are continually striving to find balance. This is why shadow work, living with the parts of ourselves we have rejected or repressed, is so pivotal. It creates a completely different attitude to life.

So in our prayers and ceremonies and ongoing thoughts around Coronavirus, let us treat her as a guest we need to find a way to live with, rather than an enemy to be defeated. In that way we maintain our feeling for life, and that will leave space for Coronavirus to respond accordingly, to find a way of being with us that is less destructive. Life responds well to fellow-feeling. And because the governmental approach is, for now, to work with instead of against Coronavirus, I think the outcome will be better than it might have been.