Sometimes it takes a global pandemic to shake us out of complacency and into realization that death has always been at our doorstep, waiting patiently for us to recognize that life as a Me is a day pass in the grand scheme of the cosmos.
Death waits, with a smirk on her face, knowing that no matter how hard we resist letting our Me self go, dying will do the trick.
As the Buddhist prescription goes, “die before you die” so that you can finally stop being the me-self and have a lot more fun and a lot less worry in the dream called your life.
Getting a taste of your vastness, a knowing of your own eternity, helps re-orient your response when the safety net (or straight jacket) of consensus realty begins to crumble. Retirement pensions, life savings, health care, prescription drugs that you depend on, and more, are all fragile assumptions that the way it is, is the way it will always be.
A lethal pandemic jolts each of us in different ways. For some, it’s a chance to panic, for others, to go into pollyanna denials. Neither of these is optimal.
Instead, why not go inward?
Why not attend to the soul of you, and listen for that still small voice? What would it have you do, now? How would it have you act, so that your actions are supporting the greater goodness of what I am calling, “The Coming Age of Miracles” and what my friend Karen McMullen (author of The Alchemy of Consciousness) is calling The Grand Reorganization.
Because let’s face it. The machinery of consumer consumptive distraction, in which the treadmill of economic growth numbs the soul and dims your divinity, is coming to an end.
It may not end this year, or the next. But it will end — and in the death throes of this failed experiment of pretending we are separate selves, a herd of Me’s running the show, we can begin to remember the We (or Oneness) of true reality.
So, how to stay sane? And awake?
For me, it’s my daily morning coffee meditation, flowers in my house, frankincense incense and diving into my creativity as a poet, and an artist, and as a messenger. I even enrolled this last week in an amazing course called “Illuminated Journaling” which calls participants to go into the art of rumination and “sacred doodles” and the depth of stillness that has come of it has surprised me. (You can learn about Chloe King’s next online class, HERE ).
Poetry is my other sanity tool. For instance, a few days ago, someone commented on my Facebook timeline, a woman, arguing I was not doing the “love and light” thing by writing a Covid-19 post that asked people to think and act like a We verses a Me, while also including facts like the case fatality rate (since when did the new age movement become so death-averse?). Rather than argue back, I wrote a therapeutic poem.
So, if you feel scared, anxious, angry, confused, why not stay sane by being creative in some way? Your creativity does not need to be in art, or writing — creativity is being the God Self that you are, no holds barred.
So just maybe, turn off the Netflix hideout, or the addiction to the daunting news cycle. Just dial it down enough to…..
1. Hear the voice of your soul (hint: it whispers, so stillness and silence help)
2. Get creative. However being creative looks to you.
Here’s my poem. It’s definitely got some juice!
The Call
We need the dark witches now,
power beyond love
and light, where the deep
inks brilliant truth
across souls hungry
for what matters.
We need the dark witches now,
who remember that love, too,
carries a sword, that change
cleaves the new from the old.
We need the dark witches now,
who know that no birth
is without pain, that cord
cutting heralds new life.
We need the dark witches now
who speak the language of love
in sharp words because true wisdom
shears away falsity.
We need the dark witches now
ebony wings up for the fight,
to remember this time
is for The Crossing
and that all thresholds
bode peril, known and unknown.
I call on you, sisters and brothers of the deep,
magicians with unbounded power
sourced in uncompromising love:
will you stand with me, united,
that we may cross safely
and carry on our courage
those yet to remember, they too
have wings.
PS: If you like this post please share.
PPS: Crazy funny, but I have an astrology reading on sale for St Patricks Day. “Harness Your Lucky Stars” –– check it out HERE if you feel you need to be cheered up — because the luck you were born with doesn’t stop in a pandemic.
Featured Image, Raven Dance, by permission of artist Robert Emerson. You can find out more about his amazing art HERE.
The Awakened Dreamer 
grandfathersky
The Ravens dance and speak the words “never more” … This too shall pass along with the Kali Yuga…
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Boyd Martin
May the dark witches conjure up that special cocktail of presence and eternity. We are shaken and stirred! Thanks, Lori! Tasty stuff.
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Lori Ann Lothian
thanks for making me smile — shaken and stirred!
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heatherbeeingasquet
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your post and poem Lori!!!
Especially “cord cutting heralds new life,” and “all thresholds bode peril.”
Thank you for sharing your words of wisdom in these wild times.
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Lori Ann Lothian
thanks Heather!
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Dorothea M. Mills
YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Lori Ann Lothian
yes! (just for good measure)
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donsalmon
Hi Lori:
Beautiful poem, but I particularly love “life as a Me is a day pass…”
We have no recognized C-19 cases here in Western North Carolina, but for the most part, people have stopped going out, and even more stunning, stopped buying.
Do you know about the famous Lewis Powell memo from the early 70s? Powell, a powerful corporate attorney (and soon to be Supreme Court Justice) wrote a memo saying that it wasn’t the Marxists, Leftists, Commies, etc that were the real threat to corporate dominance. Those damned hippies were spreading the horrid idea that life wasn’t just about having more stuff. This had to be wiped out.
And so the counter revolution set in, culminating (bless his sweet 6 year-old heart) in that other Donald (hey, my older siblings used to tease me – my name, “Donald” meaning “world mighty” in ancient Gaelic, whenever I screwed up, “Yeah, “world mighty’, sure!!).
And through his unwittingly creative impulses, the old world is falling apart and once again, would be Lewis Powells (Tom Friedman of the NY Times?) are sprouting up everywhere telling us not to worry, we’ll all be shopping and filling ourselves up from outside soon enough.
I went to Whole Foods two days ago. Lots of old hippies end up here in Asheville, and all the corporate types here – as well as Trump supporters and the rest – kind of understand they share the Divine Field here with those weird hippies (in fact, the best thing here, to me, is West Asheville, where almost everyone in their 20s look like they could have stepped right out of 1968!!).
So I’m chatting with various folks, and I swear, it seems like almost everyone understands this is about the willingness to let go. One woman talked about how she fasts anyway, but now has the feeling she’s doing it along with everyone else. Her eyes teared up and we both spontaneously “namasted’ with our hands and hearts (or as they say down here, “Namaste, y’all”).
I’ll leave you with a lovely comment from a fellow at a hospice in San Francisco. He was telling someone about his work, and they asked, “But isn’t it hard being around all those people who are dying?”
He responded, “We’re all dying. The only difference, is some people know they’re dying, but most people act like they don’t know.”
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jhawk620
…you might like this take…
https://jeffvanderclute.com/articles/a-message-from-the-coronavirus/
On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 3:12 PM The Awakened Dreamer wrote:
> Lori Ann Lothian posted: ” Sometimes it takes a global pandemic to shake > us out of complacency and into realization that death has always been at > our doorstep, waiting patiently for us to recognize that life as a Me is a > day pass in the grand scheme of the cosmos.Death waits, with” >
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Lori Ann Lothian
what a lovely comment, thank you yes to the wisdom of the hospice worker. and the the “namaste y’all” tale. I felt deep compassion for the 6 year old in office today, who is struggling so hard to act all grown up. I sent him blessings as he spoke in a live broadcast — think it was live anyway. Funny enough, medium Sylvia Brown, in her book about the end of the world written a decade ago, saw a world wide respiratory pandemic in 2020 — i have that book and she gets ALMOST EVERY PREDICTION WRONG of events that were to happen up til now. Haha. But she also predicted that 2020 would be the last US presidential election — THAT i can see happening…I really can.
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