Reclaiming our Naturalness

Why has a pandemic emerged at this time? What are the lessons to learn from it? How can we align with the positive aspects of this difficult time?

Through the lens of astrology, 2020 is a fascinating time. I’ve been hearing about 2020 for years! Knowing it would be a big deal year but not knowing how it would all play out. So, here we are.

2020 has the feeling of an intense pressure-cooker of transformational potential. All of the major planets we look at in Vedic astrology: Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus, have all been or will be retrograde at different moments this year, often with multiple retrogrades at one time. Retrogrades create a feeling of overflow of the energy that the planet signifies. Retrogrades also bring up past issues, as the planet appears to be going in a backward motion. This year gives us pause to look back at our personal and collective history and to re-evaluate. Some themes that are ‘up for re-evaluation’ are the following:

1. The validity and application of our long-held beliefs (Jupiter)
2. Societal/social norms and the structures of society (Saturn) 
3. The way we give and receive love and affection, and whether our love is reserved for just our close family, or extends outward to all of humanity (Venus)
4. How we handle anger, oppositional viewpoints, and things not going our way (Mars)
5. The effectiveness or non-effectiveness of our communication and thought patterns (Mercury)

I’m sure each of us has seen examples of these energies this year, some good and some atrocious. Saturn is clearly a big player as a historical number of people (in the US at least) are really questioning and standing up to societal structures that suppress.

COVID-19 has emerged in tandem with this astrology, similarly seeming to have the desire to create a major slow-down and reflect period of time. A pause in our daily activities is actually mandated for our safety. It is possible that Covid’s spiritual purpose is this slowing down. The opportunity or invitation here is to slow down and listen more deeply to our inner selves, to nature, to others. It isn’t easy for most of us to actually slow down, breathe, and reprioritize. Covid for many offers this opportunity. 

Despite the difficulty and interruption that the pandemic keeps revealing, it is also an opportunity for change, specifically change to structures that make it next to impossible to take care of nature and to take care of humanity’s inner nature. When a person cannot take care of their inner life through tending to their emotional and spiritual needs, their outer life is bound to be full of anger, difficulty, disease, etc. So creating systemic change that allows each person breathing room is a major part of healing the planet. 

I have been thinking about terrain theory a lot, and how it pertains to our own immunity as well as to society’s structure. This is a theory most of you are probably familiar with:

Terrain theory advises that if the body is well and balanced, germs, viruses, etc that are a natural part of life and the environment will be dealt with by the body without causing severe sickness. “Germs seek their natural habitat – diseased tissue – rather than being the cause of diseased tissue.” – Antoine Béchamp

Clearly Covid’s natural habitat is the diseased tissue of our societal structure.

Spiritually you can ask: is the inner terrain I am holding a terrain in which well being, health, compassion, and love can grow? Attending to the inner terrain of the physical body can help offset any pathogenic material that might come your way. Tend to the inner terrain of the emotional body, and you will naturally repel unhealthy emotional states and attract positive emotional states.

Bechamp advised that an acidic pH will attract germs and an alkaline pH will repel them. What causes acidic pH? Poor diet, pharmaceutical drugs, anger, anxiety, and stress, among others. So these are all things to regulate as well as you can during this charged times. That means carving out space in your life that is about relaxation, enjoyment; a space without pressure or push or demand.

We can also see why COVID-19 has disproportionately affected people of color, indigenous people, and impoverished communities. Their lives are disproportionately “acidic” as in stressful, anxious, with more difficulty finding healthy food and healthy places to live. When so much life force goes to surviving intimidation, surviving financial loss, mourning loss of loved ones, and so many other pressures and stressors, how can the immune system fend off illness? Covid has shown us the weaknesses in how we take care of people, it has revealed the ways in which our society’s terrain is sick and promotes sickness.

This is all a lot to process, so it is important during this time to also give yourself permission to find practices and activities that restore you, that fuel your heart and inspire you, so that your inner terrain stays healthy and promotes health in others, just through your presence.

The healing response to Covid really is an inner change within each and every person towards a more balanced life where care for others, relaxation and enjoyment of life is as important as success, status, and achievement.

It is my feeling that to create long-lasting sustainability on our beloved planet, we as humans need to become more natural. If you spend time in nature you will likely witness a total lack of pressure, anxiety, negativity, hatred. Beings can actually coexist in harmony! This is not happening very well in human society. We have gotten too far from our natural state, and we need to reclaim our naturalness if we want to heal the planet.

What would you like to see happen in the 2020s? For yourself? For others? For the planet? How can you promote the “alkalinity” within yourself and others? 

Amma made a comment in a program a couple of years ago that I still think about often that I feel is so relevant to this hot, edgy, intense time; she said (and I paraphrase): “With global warming heating up the planet, people search for air conditioning to cool down their homes. But what they need more is an air conditioner for their minds.”

Let us all help each other cool down our hot heads, and instead open our hearts to care for each other.