Division, Reunion, and some other stuff

Before Covid, I’d been feeling kind of done with writing social commentary in essay form. Or politics, philosophy… something else has been calling to me. But then the pandemic hit, and suddenly here was much of what I’d been saying for 15 years made visible: the Age of Separation, the story of control, technological utopia/dystopia, the dissolution of normal, war mentality, on and on. So I stepped intensively into social commentary.

Whatever was calling me away still calls. I’ve been telling myself that I’m done writing about “the pandemic,” which as a social phenomenon (as opposed to an epidemiological one) is over only when people agree that it is over. I know a lot of people are done with it. Sick of talking about it. Sick of performing pandemic theater. For my part, I am sick of having opinions about it. And yet…

In many places it is getting easier to forget about the pandemic, as life returns to some semblance of normal. And that is what moves me to say one more thing about it. If we flee to an illusion of normal from which we’d originally craved liberation, this all will have been in vain.

OK, it looks like I’ve already begun writing the essay I wasn’t going to write. I’ll stop right here for now, because I came onto Substack today to share a few other things. These hint at what I’m being called to. First an interview: Healing the Collective & Awakening to Unity, on The Lifestylist podcast. (Youtube, Spotify, Apple). The interviewer, Luke Storey, was in a seat of deep humility and receptivity, which always brings out my best as I orient toward doing it honor.

Here are a couple upcoming events, then a painting and a final note on division and Reunion:

Feb. 8, 8pm EST: Instagram Live on a channel called Plant Based Ben. Topic? Not sure. But often a lot of interesting stuff comes out when I talk with these fitness guys and body hackers. It’s a fascinating universe they inhabit. They do not exclude the body from spirituality, or spirituality from the body.

On March 15, 3pm EST, I’ll be on a program called Climate Change as Spiritual Practice. Topic is “Transforming anxiety into empowerment.” That’s what it says, anyway. The climate issue, behind the Covid fog, has been in a process of transformation over the past two years. Like so many other things, old certainties are crumbling and we are about to step into new territory.

Painting by Michell Halley. If anyone would like to donate artwork to future posts, please mention in the comments.

I will continue to write essays along with these little notes and updates. I’m sure most of you can feel what I have—change is in the air. Social and political change more profound than anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. and I’m not talking about what has already happened. I’m talking about what is just underway. What Covid set in motion will not end with Covid. Covid was its beginning. As it unfolds, all the tools we have prepared in the margins of “real life” will come to the center. The full human being needs to come on line. I will say again what I said a few months ago: the rehearsal is over. Maybe I’ll write a Part 2 of that one.

One more thing, just a thread for those touching into a certain despair: Divisions must be flushed to the surface in order to be healed. The rot must be exposed to the light of day. That’s why I have to write one more thing about the pandemic—to help it complete that purpose and swivel toward the social, relational, and personal healing phase. These have been divisive times. The next step is Reunion.