Hey everyone, I haven’t written about Covid issues much for several months. Partly, like a lot of people, because I so much wanted to be done with it; partly because the span of my interests goes way beyond public health. Nonetheless, I intend to return my attention to it again in one or two essays. Why? Because we as a society seem to have moved past Covid without fully absorbing its lessons. As some of the polarized intensity has dissipated over the past few months, there is now an opening for deeper consideration of underlying issues. I would like to revisit what I wrote about in 2020 and 2021 from the perspective of today. I’m curious, readers, what you would particularly like me to address?
Jul 1, 2022·edited Jul 1, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
Rebuilding trust is so important in our individual connections but also in those who purport to act on our behalf. After covid, I don't feel I can believe anything that any representative of any government on either side of the political/ideological divide has to say. My work no longer has meaning and all I want to do is leave the city we live in and head for the hills. I have reached the point where I doubt everything and question everything I read from mainstream media sources. I have running battles with people I don't know and will never meet on online platforms. Everywhere I look I see manipulation and indoctrination. I fear for my daughter who is starting high school next year. She is so excited but how can I share in her excitement when they are taught that they are vectors of disease and don't have the power within themselves to heal and fight infection? Everything has become ultra polarised. It's all so sad, so tragic that we have been pitted against each other and it's only a matter of time before another event is used to amplify / reignite the divisions between us and drive fear into our hearts. What is the point of politics if politicians are increasingly self-serving, or, worse, handmaidens to an elite and unelected ruling class whose agenda is self-serving and constitutes the eradication of our freedoms and our spirit?
Charles thanks for asking! My family in the US refused to allow me to visit for 1.5 years (because non jabbed). Just this week that has changed. One of them "can't wait to see me." I don't at this moment feel the same, it is going to take me time to figure it out on an emotional level. One of my friends thought it was fine for kindergartners to wear masks, another wouldn't go to events unless the jab was required, these are people on spiritual path and were some of my closest friends. On top of the tear in the fabric of these individual relationships there is the loss of trust on a macro level with government and economic structure, the realization of the depth of the rot in the western health systems and how the global elite fit into it all. It has been a shock to my system honestly. The overarching theme taking place now feels surreal to me -- many people are going on with life as if nothing has happened while myself and others look on at the catastrophic breakdown that continues to happen. Even knowing this will lead us in a better direction, knowing these systems needs to breakdown, on a day to day level it is challenging. If you could address any of these topics that would be wonderful. All the best to you.
Hi Charles - I have loved everything you've written about this issue and it has brought me great comfort and good talking points when I've cared to get into such conversations. But something I haven't seen anyone address except in some of the other comments is this: because I'm not vaccinated, I have been barred, excluded from, uninvited and asked to leave so many groups, classes, activities and organizations that I love. It has been really painful and isolating in this small town. And there is absolutely no space or opening for talking about it with the folks that have done the excluding. They're too certain of the correctness of their actions.
The organizer of a little once a week, ukelele jam session I'd been asked to leave last year emailed me and asked me to return, at least while they meet outdoors for the summer. It brought up an astonishing array of emotions and I didn't know how to respond. I wrote back with a blend of gratitude, understanding, and honesty, saying I'd love to come back, I understood it was hard to have asked me to leave, but that I now felt awkward. I said I'd think about joining them some week, but I wasn't sure. I never heard back. I kicked myself for saying too much. Maybe I should just have been grateful for the invitation, said nothing but "Thanks!", and gone back and had fun like I used to.
On the one hand, I was uncomfortable, grieving, hurt and angry, and I wasn't sure if I'd have as much fun as before, what with my conflicting emotions.
It's not just about this ukelele group. It's about all the others--the yoga class filled with friends and a real sense of community, now open only to vaccinated people. The annual summer reunion of high school friends that has met every year for the past 45 years, from which I was expressly (and sanctimoniously) excluded last year. Two museums my husband and I used to love to go to. Two "open and affirming" churches I used to frequent that have closed their doors unvaccinated people, and no one sees the irony. My therapist, who is alternatively minded (for lack of a better term) and commiserated with me about Big Pharma and modern medicine, but who, when Covid hit, got the vax and said it would be "difficult" to see me unless I was vaccinated. Recently she said maybe she could start seeing me again, if I wore a mask and used nasal spray that has been shown to kill SARS-CoV 2--even though I told her I'd had Covid and was immune. A Celtic music trio I was part of, a Course In Miracles Study group, two favorite museums we're long time members of, a favorite bookstore, the local repertory theater, and on and on.
How do we respond if/when we're invited back by people who, last year, chided/berate/challenged/questioned/excluded/feared/shamed us? How do we respond to the sanctimony, the lack of understanding, the impatience, the shaming, the "can't-we-just-move-past-that?"
I'd like to say I have sufficient sympathy and compassion to laugh it off and happily return if/when invited, but the pain that came up when I was invited back to the ukelele group made me realize it's way more complicated. It's also a huge burden to consider having to talk about it with people who don't want to hear it, and to do that whole cost/benefit analysis to decide when or if to bring it up and take that all on, which is exhausting, or just stuff it and risk bulking up our personal and collective shadows.
So I'd love to hear what you might have to say about this. Thanks again for your immensely healing and important words.
My feeling is the 2 years of “pandemic” were just the bare beginning. People seem to think it’s over when, in fact, only the first part of the experiment has been completed (wether it was successful regarding its intentions or not, is beyond me. Probably it was quite successful but not completely). So, I’d love to hear where you think we’re towards now and which goals you think they achieved during this experiment (and which are still to be reached).
Rebuilding trust: yes, that’s a big issue, but I also think that it has been shattered beyond repair. I have always been a skeptic anyway, but these last two years have deepened it to the point where I no longer pay any attention to anything or anyone purporting to be a mainstream health authority. There’s just too much cynicism in my mind and I immediately suspect they are either dupes or have some other nefarious intent.
How to go forward from here: what is needed is a way around it, a new medical underground, so to speak, that deals in concrete, useful and actionable information about COVID and other respiratory illnesses, like medicine used to be before the government and/or insurance lobbyists interfered and shot it all to hell.
For me the most damaging issue that still lingers on post-Pan and has cost the "still living" lives, is the sad departure of most of my lifetime friends of 20-40 yrs and some family relationships. This has hurt so deeply that I sometimes wonder if we would be better off if we had of died from Covid. Finding out that there was conditions to the love you thought you had is the deep hurt. Isnt the very definition of love to have it come unconditionally? Living with the pain of knowing that people you thought were your friends and family that eliminated you is the fallout, the wounded soldier and broken spirit. Is it due to their altruistic- virtue -condescension and criticism. Using their new found "V status" as a reason to lord over others in superiority and unconsciously or consciously finding ways to divide themselves from their "loved peoples"- Over a V? REALLY? Insert shock, awe, & much disbelief. What was and is still missing in the hearts of people that they could expect the non V to accept their choices of being V yet in turn could not reciprocate the same to others? And now these same persons are unwilling to mend the broken relationships, hence making it it last well beyond the Pandemic. Back to normal is it? Masks off? I say not. My guts hurt from the pain of loss and bewilderment. Not just one but 7 people. Its as though they cant come back to you now because they may have to accept and face their own inner Miser, their own Judge and Jury- who hanged the innocent men & women. The un V (how we ever got this as a prefix?) are not guilty of any crime, yet we are sentenced to a life-enduring penalty. To me, the Pandemic in this context, is not over. We may not see the damage visually as we pass eachother in the supermarket, but this is because we wear the scars unseen hidden inside our broken hearts.
It isn't over in my world, either. Two days ago I brought my daughter to a physical therapy appointment and was told to remove my cloth mask and replace it with a brand new disposable one. I expressed my concern that the harms of single use plastic might outweigh the immediate risks. The conversation escalated and the staff quickly went into a defensive mode where any discussion was impossible and we were told we had the "choice" to go somewhere else where the policy is different or to leave. I was so angry and so shocked. I wished I could have been more calm and persistent, wished I had more facts and data I could have shared effectively, wished that I didn't feel so emotional about it all. My daughter also just was notified that unvaccinated can't attend the summer dance intensive she has been signed up for since February. We had to sign a religious exemption form in order to attend. It is not going away here in MA.
I would be curious to hear about how we can reconnect with old friends who have remained inside the old paradigm. I have wrestled with how to forgive friends who attacked my character when I explained how I saw the situation. Must we truly find all new communities or can we traverse between the simulation and the new space.
So much rebuilding to do Charles society seems shattered , if there were many pieces one could hope for nuance . However it seems less a shattering and rather more a fault line through the middle . Metaphorically a wall is being erected between two distinct beliefs / narratives . I’ve been directly affected for my own choices , however I’ve done my best to assimilate the choices of others . The defining motive being the great evolution of compassion and understanding , I believe we had reached this place pre 2020 now I’m not too sure . There are many things the power and strength of your writing might address :
What now for right and left politics
How much industrial medicine should we now be thinking of in our lives
How do we create natural fitness , how do we learn to accept death
How do we open up discussion between groups how can we express nuance without appearing indecisive
Mostly Charles where is the love now ? Certainly it’s not in red pill / blue pill - awake / non awake beliefs and labelling . It’s in love - action whatever that might take to see other ? What are your thoughts
With love Charles , I wait in expectation of your writing
I don't feel like we've moved on from Covid at all in NH. People are still wearing masks (tho not as many) and jabs are still mandated for many jobs. All my friends are vaxxed and boosted and they love it! No changing any of their minds. They want to shame people who are unvaxxed, like me. My son couldn't be a guide on a canoe trip in Maine because he wasn't jabbed, so it feels to me like we are a long way from being beyond Covid. It doesn't seem like the powers-that-be are going to let us go back to normal life EVER.
Hello Charles. Before posting this comment I spent a little time looking at what others commenters had to say and, in truth, I relate to much of what has already been written. I, too, feel cynical and unable to trust authorities, experts and mainstream media. I, too, am angry and fear that we may have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to societal manipulation and control. I, too, am worried about the future of my children and grandchildren. That said, I believe the changes that have taken place, especially over the past few years, stem from a place of attachment (whether it's our penchant for accumulating and consuming things or, more insidiously, our attachment to thoughts, ideas and opinions, i.e. right and wrong) and ego dominated thinking. I often feel caught between two worlds and wonder if others feel that way as well. It's easy, for instance, to become drawn into (and enraged by) the latest controversy, albeit vaccines, the Great Reset, the most recent SCOTUS decisions, and on and on. And every time my ego draws me in, it feels familiar - perhaps even comfortable - as though I've been here before. Many times. (I remember similar feelings of conflict and anger arising when the US invaded Iraq...again, similar feelings, different context.) Have you ever taken a road trip in a car that only has an AM/FM radio? Remember the static that happens when you begin to drive out of range of the radio station? At first it's barely noticeable but before long it becomes nerve wracking and unbearable. That's what our world feels like. The static is deeply pervasive...it keeps us from hearing, seeing and knowing that this is not how life is meant to be. Perhaps it comes down to making a conscious decision not to let the static become overwhelming but if that's the case, I have tried time and again and have not been successful. I suppose my question - or what I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on - is this: How can we create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible while at the same time being pulled back into the world of attachment and ego and the continual, destructive feelings of conflict, betrayal, anger that accompany it? We were not meant to live this way. Thank you, dear Charles, for all you do to inform and inspire others.
It seems to me that the most urgent thing is to regain our awareness to the fact that we are powerful creative beings, divine in nature. We have taken a 'wrong turn' somewhere and live in the mistaken belief that the world of form and phenomena is everything. Our identification with and focus on the mundane keeps us trapped in the illusion of separation. This, I feel, is the root of our crisis. It is a crisis of consciousness. While we are working through the housing crisis, the financial crisis, the Corona crisis, the war, the climate crisis, an economic crisis, and whatever other crises may come, all the while we are overlooking the fact that all of this is just the outer form of our collective consciousness. How can we find our way back to the spiritual creator being that we really are?
I apologize for my poor english, it's been a while since I lived in the USA, my english gets rusty.
The US has moved on and other places maybe mentally. However just to the north, Canada still quarantined the unv’d and is making statements about boosters for flying this fall. We still wear masks in certain places. General practitioners are asking for in-patient (think: paps) to be double v’d. People are quite sick in what seems like a constant rotation here in Ontario. Many relationships that ruptured have not repaired. The dissonance is still very high and most are focused on inflation naturally. Curious to see how you float this conversation.
Jul 1, 2022·edited Jul 1, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
We have not fully moved on here in the Bay Area (mostly Berkeley and Oakland.) People are still wearing n95s outside and masking their children. Many businesses still require masks. My friend's autistic son is still required to wear a mask at his school in Marin. Alameda County issued a 3 week mask mandate (the only county in the US to do so in "post-Covid" times!) and it was shown it made NO difference compared to neighboring Contra Costa county which is very similar to Alameda in makeup and size. The health officer of Alameda, when shown this data by a reporter (Eric Ting of SF Gate), said "We believe it made a difference." So how do we move on when people are clinging to this and still so anti-science and using "belief" over facts? How do we break localities out of this brainwashed state, that attaches masks and Covidian religiosity to being politically moral and woke? Because some of us who are sane still have to live in these areas and it's utterly depressing...
These comments really resonate with me as I am also angry. I'm sure there is a great desire to just move on without really understanding or even caring to understand. This would be a very grave error. We have all been through something, much gas lighting, censorship, disparagement of alternative voices, outright attempts to remove medical credentials, coercion manipulation lies. I think it is incredibly important to know that we who see this reality are many. I would also like to understand how Mass formation occurred in this case, and what we can all do to not be part of it in the future, and to help wake up those who fell for it this time. Because I believe the attempt will be made to use the same tactics for any number of politically or profitably motivated hysteria in the future. This is not over by any means, it was a successful operation but for us.
Jul 1, 2022·edited Jul 1, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
Congratulations on the new book Charles!
Your writing and discussions have been crucial for surviving and keeping our sanity these last two years.
I feel like this is far from over and I don't mean the virus but the "emergency measures".
Here in Greece where I live, we had some of the worst measures and response to Covid. People who refused the jab, were treated as second class citizens to put it mildly.
But it is not over. Just of yesterday Greece’s highest court, the Council of State has ruled that the mandatory vaccination against Covid-19 for those aged over 60 is “constitutionally tolerable” and the monthly fine of 100 euros per month is a “reasonable motive” .
Rebuilding trust is so important in our individual connections but also in those who purport to act on our behalf. After covid, I don't feel I can believe anything that any representative of any government on either side of the political/ideological divide has to say. My work no longer has meaning and all I want to do is leave the city we live in and head for the hills. I have reached the point where I doubt everything and question everything I read from mainstream media sources. I have running battles with people I don't know and will never meet on online platforms. Everywhere I look I see manipulation and indoctrination. I fear for my daughter who is starting high school next year. She is so excited but how can I share in her excitement when they are taught that they are vectors of disease and don't have the power within themselves to heal and fight infection? Everything has become ultra polarised. It's all so sad, so tragic that we have been pitted against each other and it's only a matter of time before another event is used to amplify / reignite the divisions between us and drive fear into our hearts. What is the point of politics if politicians are increasingly self-serving, or, worse, handmaidens to an elite and unelected ruling class whose agenda is self-serving and constitutes the eradication of our freedoms and our spirit?
Charles thanks for asking! My family in the US refused to allow me to visit for 1.5 years (because non jabbed). Just this week that has changed. One of them "can't wait to see me." I don't at this moment feel the same, it is going to take me time to figure it out on an emotional level. One of my friends thought it was fine for kindergartners to wear masks, another wouldn't go to events unless the jab was required, these are people on spiritual path and were some of my closest friends. On top of the tear in the fabric of these individual relationships there is the loss of trust on a macro level with government and economic structure, the realization of the depth of the rot in the western health systems and how the global elite fit into it all. It has been a shock to my system honestly. The overarching theme taking place now feels surreal to me -- many people are going on with life as if nothing has happened while myself and others look on at the catastrophic breakdown that continues to happen. Even knowing this will lead us in a better direction, knowing these systems needs to breakdown, on a day to day level it is challenging. If you could address any of these topics that would be wonderful. All the best to you.
Hi Charles - I have loved everything you've written about this issue and it has brought me great comfort and good talking points when I've cared to get into such conversations. But something I haven't seen anyone address except in some of the other comments is this: because I'm not vaccinated, I have been barred, excluded from, uninvited and asked to leave so many groups, classes, activities and organizations that I love. It has been really painful and isolating in this small town. And there is absolutely no space or opening for talking about it with the folks that have done the excluding. They're too certain of the correctness of their actions.
The organizer of a little once a week, ukelele jam session I'd been asked to leave last year emailed me and asked me to return, at least while they meet outdoors for the summer. It brought up an astonishing array of emotions and I didn't know how to respond. I wrote back with a blend of gratitude, understanding, and honesty, saying I'd love to come back, I understood it was hard to have asked me to leave, but that I now felt awkward. I said I'd think about joining them some week, but I wasn't sure. I never heard back. I kicked myself for saying too much. Maybe I should just have been grateful for the invitation, said nothing but "Thanks!", and gone back and had fun like I used to.
On the one hand, I was uncomfortable, grieving, hurt and angry, and I wasn't sure if I'd have as much fun as before, what with my conflicting emotions.
It's not just about this ukelele group. It's about all the others--the yoga class filled with friends and a real sense of community, now open only to vaccinated people. The annual summer reunion of high school friends that has met every year for the past 45 years, from which I was expressly (and sanctimoniously) excluded last year. Two museums my husband and I used to love to go to. Two "open and affirming" churches I used to frequent that have closed their doors unvaccinated people, and no one sees the irony. My therapist, who is alternatively minded (for lack of a better term) and commiserated with me about Big Pharma and modern medicine, but who, when Covid hit, got the vax and said it would be "difficult" to see me unless I was vaccinated. Recently she said maybe she could start seeing me again, if I wore a mask and used nasal spray that has been shown to kill SARS-CoV 2--even though I told her I'd had Covid and was immune. A Celtic music trio I was part of, a Course In Miracles Study group, two favorite museums we're long time members of, a favorite bookstore, the local repertory theater, and on and on.
How do we respond if/when we're invited back by people who, last year, chided/berate/challenged/questioned/excluded/feared/shamed us? How do we respond to the sanctimony, the lack of understanding, the impatience, the shaming, the "can't-we-just-move-past-that?"
I'd like to say I have sufficient sympathy and compassion to laugh it off and happily return if/when invited, but the pain that came up when I was invited back to the ukelele group made me realize it's way more complicated. It's also a huge burden to consider having to talk about it with people who don't want to hear it, and to do that whole cost/benefit analysis to decide when or if to bring it up and take that all on, which is exhausting, or just stuff it and risk bulking up our personal and collective shadows.
So I'd love to hear what you might have to say about this. Thanks again for your immensely healing and important words.
My feeling is the 2 years of “pandemic” were just the bare beginning. People seem to think it’s over when, in fact, only the first part of the experiment has been completed (wether it was successful regarding its intentions or not, is beyond me. Probably it was quite successful but not completely). So, I’d love to hear where you think we’re towards now and which goals you think they achieved during this experiment (and which are still to be reached).
Rebuilding trust: yes, that’s a big issue, but I also think that it has been shattered beyond repair. I have always been a skeptic anyway, but these last two years have deepened it to the point where I no longer pay any attention to anything or anyone purporting to be a mainstream health authority. There’s just too much cynicism in my mind and I immediately suspect they are either dupes or have some other nefarious intent.
How to go forward from here: what is needed is a way around it, a new medical underground, so to speak, that deals in concrete, useful and actionable information about COVID and other respiratory illnesses, like medicine used to be before the government and/or insurance lobbyists interfered and shot it all to hell.
Hi Charles,
For me the most damaging issue that still lingers on post-Pan and has cost the "still living" lives, is the sad departure of most of my lifetime friends of 20-40 yrs and some family relationships. This has hurt so deeply that I sometimes wonder if we would be better off if we had of died from Covid. Finding out that there was conditions to the love you thought you had is the deep hurt. Isnt the very definition of love to have it come unconditionally? Living with the pain of knowing that people you thought were your friends and family that eliminated you is the fallout, the wounded soldier and broken spirit. Is it due to their altruistic- virtue -condescension and criticism. Using their new found "V status" as a reason to lord over others in superiority and unconsciously or consciously finding ways to divide themselves from their "loved peoples"- Over a V? REALLY? Insert shock, awe, & much disbelief. What was and is still missing in the hearts of people that they could expect the non V to accept their choices of being V yet in turn could not reciprocate the same to others? And now these same persons are unwilling to mend the broken relationships, hence making it it last well beyond the Pandemic. Back to normal is it? Masks off? I say not. My guts hurt from the pain of loss and bewilderment. Not just one but 7 people. Its as though they cant come back to you now because they may have to accept and face their own inner Miser, their own Judge and Jury- who hanged the innocent men & women. The un V (how we ever got this as a prefix?) are not guilty of any crime, yet we are sentenced to a life-enduring penalty. To me, the Pandemic in this context, is not over. We may not see the damage visually as we pass eachother in the supermarket, but this is because we wear the scars unseen hidden inside our broken hearts.
It isn't over in my world, either. Two days ago I brought my daughter to a physical therapy appointment and was told to remove my cloth mask and replace it with a brand new disposable one. I expressed my concern that the harms of single use plastic might outweigh the immediate risks. The conversation escalated and the staff quickly went into a defensive mode where any discussion was impossible and we were told we had the "choice" to go somewhere else where the policy is different or to leave. I was so angry and so shocked. I wished I could have been more calm and persistent, wished I had more facts and data I could have shared effectively, wished that I didn't feel so emotional about it all. My daughter also just was notified that unvaccinated can't attend the summer dance intensive she has been signed up for since February. We had to sign a religious exemption form in order to attend. It is not going away here in MA.
I would be curious to hear about how we can reconnect with old friends who have remained inside the old paradigm. I have wrestled with how to forgive friends who attacked my character when I explained how I saw the situation. Must we truly find all new communities or can we traverse between the simulation and the new space.
So much rebuilding to do Charles society seems shattered , if there were many pieces one could hope for nuance . However it seems less a shattering and rather more a fault line through the middle . Metaphorically a wall is being erected between two distinct beliefs / narratives . I’ve been directly affected for my own choices , however I’ve done my best to assimilate the choices of others . The defining motive being the great evolution of compassion and understanding , I believe we had reached this place pre 2020 now I’m not too sure . There are many things the power and strength of your writing might address :
What now for right and left politics
How much industrial medicine should we now be thinking of in our lives
How do we create natural fitness , how do we learn to accept death
How do we open up discussion between groups how can we express nuance without appearing indecisive
Mostly Charles where is the love now ? Certainly it’s not in red pill / blue pill - awake / non awake beliefs and labelling . It’s in love - action whatever that might take to see other ? What are your thoughts
With love Charles , I wait in expectation of your writing
I don't feel like we've moved on from Covid at all in NH. People are still wearing masks (tho not as many) and jabs are still mandated for many jobs. All my friends are vaxxed and boosted and they love it! No changing any of their minds. They want to shame people who are unvaxxed, like me. My son couldn't be a guide on a canoe trip in Maine because he wasn't jabbed, so it feels to me like we are a long way from being beyond Covid. It doesn't seem like the powers-that-be are going to let us go back to normal life EVER.
Hello Charles. Before posting this comment I spent a little time looking at what others commenters had to say and, in truth, I relate to much of what has already been written. I, too, feel cynical and unable to trust authorities, experts and mainstream media. I, too, am angry and fear that we may have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to societal manipulation and control. I, too, am worried about the future of my children and grandchildren. That said, I believe the changes that have taken place, especially over the past few years, stem from a place of attachment (whether it's our penchant for accumulating and consuming things or, more insidiously, our attachment to thoughts, ideas and opinions, i.e. right and wrong) and ego dominated thinking. I often feel caught between two worlds and wonder if others feel that way as well. It's easy, for instance, to become drawn into (and enraged by) the latest controversy, albeit vaccines, the Great Reset, the most recent SCOTUS decisions, and on and on. And every time my ego draws me in, it feels familiar - perhaps even comfortable - as though I've been here before. Many times. (I remember similar feelings of conflict and anger arising when the US invaded Iraq...again, similar feelings, different context.) Have you ever taken a road trip in a car that only has an AM/FM radio? Remember the static that happens when you begin to drive out of range of the radio station? At first it's barely noticeable but before long it becomes nerve wracking and unbearable. That's what our world feels like. The static is deeply pervasive...it keeps us from hearing, seeing and knowing that this is not how life is meant to be. Perhaps it comes down to making a conscious decision not to let the static become overwhelming but if that's the case, I have tried time and again and have not been successful. I suppose my question - or what I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on - is this: How can we create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible while at the same time being pulled back into the world of attachment and ego and the continual, destructive feelings of conflict, betrayal, anger that accompany it? We were not meant to live this way. Thank you, dear Charles, for all you do to inform and inspire others.
It seems to me that the most urgent thing is to regain our awareness to the fact that we are powerful creative beings, divine in nature. We have taken a 'wrong turn' somewhere and live in the mistaken belief that the world of form and phenomena is everything. Our identification with and focus on the mundane keeps us trapped in the illusion of separation. This, I feel, is the root of our crisis. It is a crisis of consciousness. While we are working through the housing crisis, the financial crisis, the Corona crisis, the war, the climate crisis, an economic crisis, and whatever other crises may come, all the while we are overlooking the fact that all of this is just the outer form of our collective consciousness. How can we find our way back to the spiritual creator being that we really are?
I apologize for my poor english, it's been a while since I lived in the USA, my english gets rusty.
The US has moved on and other places maybe mentally. However just to the north, Canada still quarantined the unv’d and is making statements about boosters for flying this fall. We still wear masks in certain places. General practitioners are asking for in-patient (think: paps) to be double v’d. People are quite sick in what seems like a constant rotation here in Ontario. Many relationships that ruptured have not repaired. The dissonance is still very high and most are focused on inflation naturally. Curious to see how you float this conversation.
We have not fully moved on here in the Bay Area (mostly Berkeley and Oakland.) People are still wearing n95s outside and masking their children. Many businesses still require masks. My friend's autistic son is still required to wear a mask at his school in Marin. Alameda County issued a 3 week mask mandate (the only county in the US to do so in "post-Covid" times!) and it was shown it made NO difference compared to neighboring Contra Costa county which is very similar to Alameda in makeup and size. The health officer of Alameda, when shown this data by a reporter (Eric Ting of SF Gate), said "We believe it made a difference." So how do we move on when people are clinging to this and still so anti-science and using "belief" over facts? How do we break localities out of this brainwashed state, that attaches masks and Covidian religiosity to being politically moral and woke? Because some of us who are sane still have to live in these areas and it's utterly depressing...
These comments really resonate with me as I am also angry. I'm sure there is a great desire to just move on without really understanding or even caring to understand. This would be a very grave error. We have all been through something, much gas lighting, censorship, disparagement of alternative voices, outright attempts to remove medical credentials, coercion manipulation lies. I think it is incredibly important to know that we who see this reality are many. I would also like to understand how Mass formation occurred in this case, and what we can all do to not be part of it in the future, and to help wake up those who fell for it this time. Because I believe the attempt will be made to use the same tactics for any number of politically or profitably motivated hysteria in the future. This is not over by any means, it was a successful operation but for us.
Congratulations on the new book Charles!
Your writing and discussions have been crucial for surviving and keeping our sanity these last two years.
I feel like this is far from over and I don't mean the virus but the "emergency measures".
Here in Greece where I live, we had some of the worst measures and response to Covid. People who refused the jab, were treated as second class citizens to put it mildly.
But it is not over. Just of yesterday Greece’s highest court, the Council of State has ruled that the mandatory vaccination against Covid-19 for those aged over 60 is “constitutionally tolerable” and the monthly fine of 100 euros per month is a “reasonable motive” .
(https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2022/06/30/greece-cos-mandatory-vaccination-constitutional-fine-reasonable/)
Moreover they will role out digital IDs here from July on. All these seems like we are up to a really tough fall coming in September.
The majority has accepted it all without much opposition.
Seems like when it comes to "health" and "safety" the majority of people is ready to accept the worst dicatorship... :(((
So I don't know what to expect. It would be great if you could talk about some of these issues.