Some Coronavirus Musings from a Sanctuary

I walk around a large barn, rockwalled on one side, more like a large garage, cement floored; beyond are open spaces revealed and then concealed by the clouds and mists, retreating and advancing. The land glows green.

 

In this time of pestilence, which seems in abeyance here, waiting beyond, yet permeating the mind with its weight of the fraught, of the impending end—and yet across the road the avocado tree is in full bloom, its tiny green flowers myriad, promising.

 

Allie, who works with the horses (I live on a horse sanctuary), has planted taro, called kalo here, in a raised bed in front of this barn. Horse poop has been laid over the soil. There is an indigenous hope in these plants, their unfurling vivid green leaves and their dark rhizomes mostly hidden, growing, growing, doing their work in the dark.

I wake up too early these days. I can’t go back to sleep usually; the pandemic drifting in my waking thoughts. The awareness simply there. I went to the pharmacy, masked and gloved. They have put tables in front of the pharmacy windows to attempt a forced distance, but people lean in over these. I pull off the gloves outside, an edge of guilt in such waste being made in colossal quantities.

 

The images of the virus are legion, it somehow reminds me of something out of Dr. Who. I think of the Christian doctrine of the holy ghost, depicted in various artworks as a dove. Sometimes called the paraclete (an advocate of sorts). An apparition, yet with a physical form, inchoate and yet…very material.

A strand of RNA encapsulated in a protein shell with spikes which give a corona quality that virologists found reminiscent of the solar corona, that aura of plasma emanating from the sun. Whoa–the virus takes us metaphorically in language chains to some surprising places.

 

A vast net of suffering and yet out of all this something appears that many are noticing: a greater sense of our planetary interconnectedness. Awareness that flutters in and out of our anxieties. Something that emerged out of the jagged tears and rips in the world of late capitalism, the implacable relentless growth destroying and destorying forests, turning the seas into plastic soups, leaving so many people dehumanized and stripped of the rich, complex stories that we need as much as nutrients and vitamins….

 

The novel coronavirus is something that has arrived, that has appeared and changes the world. In the tensions between what was and the unknown what will be a liminal space, that of Janus the god of doors with his two faces of beginnings and endings, signifies.

 

You’ve come to slay

and rip off the bandages

from our eyes, to reassert

most painful truths

uncomfortable as exploding

glass

while malign power brokers

shuffle, like rabid elephants,

stirring up

dust clouds of obfuscation.

 

The Observatory, a Meditation

You’re walking up the mountain. You’ve passed the tree line and keep on going, taking occasional rest breaks as it can be hard to catch your breath up here. You tread on a red crunchy soil. After a while you realize there’s a large round building near the top. At first, you thought it was a cloud.

 

You’re much higher than you had realized as you turn and see the land you’ve walked through unfurling far below.

 

You turn back, taking in the sight of the domed building above you. There is a door ahead of you. The building is high but it is only when you enter that you realize that it is huge. Somehow the interior space seems to have grown. A matter of perspective, they say.

 

There is a long open staircase made of metal, which you can climb up to a ring of galleries. Alternatively, you might find an elevator to take you up.

 

You may find a guide here, or perhaps not. What is up there are a long series of windows (there may be as many as 70*). Through these windows you can look out onto many, many views. But sometimes they only give onto white, thick cloud banks, fogs. Look carefully. You may be able to see into the years ahead. Into possibilities, those that may be important for you and your community. Or into the Otherworld. The colors are liminal. Concentrate on them. Surrender. Can you step onto the clouds? Or see new constellations? With practice you can read them. The starlight can be intense. It can enter your cells. The atmosphere is thin.

 

 

Above this, in the center of the dome is an aperture. You can’t easily approach this but be aware it is there. It is possible a god may descend from there or maybe pop up through one of the hatches.

 

You can come to this tower when you really want to know something. You may not like what you see. Maybe it will be life changing, when life becomes insurmountable below. You may see things that better helps you navigate in the turbulence ahead.

 

 

 

 

*I mention this number because Merlin had an observatory with 70 windows and 70 doors as related in the Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin) by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The architect was his sister Ganieda. Unlike this one, their observatory was built in the woods. But this is just extra information.