Member-only story
Planet Soul
How to Spiritually Surrender During a Pandemic
The universe is recalibrating — and so are we
On Monday, March 9, I was out walking my dog when I saw a stunning, tangerine full moon hung low in the sky. Maybe you saw it. Its beauty seemed even more poignant than usual perhaps because it was the first day that I started to consider COVID-19, and I felt a strong sense of impermanence.
Until then, my head had been ostrichlike in the sand. I had heard about the virus but hadn’t paid much attention. I thought it unlikely that it would reach my family or me. And if it did reach us, it was like getting the flu, right?
That night, however, I started to get the feeling that things weren’t going to be all right, that the virus was more severe than I had previously believed. As I walked in the moonlight, I became melancholy. I couldn’t help but think, “Is this how it is all going to go down?” Would a “novel” virus not only wreak havoc on our daily lives and businesses but also claim lives? “Why would this happen to us?” I silently wondered. But I quickly heard the answer, “Why wouldn’t this happen to us?” This virus, or any crisis really, is a reminder that as much as we would like to believe that we are in control, we’re not. The planet has its own agenda.
I recently learned about the Gaia hypothesis. Chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis developed this theory. It hypothesizes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on earth to self-regulate and rebalance, creating the conditions that enable life on this planet. Though this hypothesis has a lot of critics, it seems to make sense.
This hypothesis is aligned with eastern and Native American traditions that believe we are not discrete individuals, but part of a larger whole. We thrive when we work in harmony with other humans, animals, and our environment. It’s just like how our liver is not independent of our heart or even the food and substances we put into our bodies. Our organs, nutrients, and our behavior together determine our health and sustain our living, functioning body. Similarly, the earth’s inhabitants, systems, and structures come together to make a living, breathing, planet — let’s call her Gaia.
