Everywhere you look, it sounds like corona. Newspapers and other media run dramatic headlines. Experts and policymakers warn us, adjust their course and take measures. There are many victims. And deaths. As if the end of times were near. That is in fact a certainty. We are standing at the birthing bed of new times. Everyone has something to say about it. Me too. It is time to speak. And to listen. First listen, then speak.
Everything is connected to everything
One minuscule little virus is holding the entire world in its grip. What power! Getting almost every country in the world talking about it in no time at all. Drawing all the attention to itself! Sowing panic! People succumbing to its presence! Creating fear! Mobilising everyone! Shutting down whole countries! Just try doing that. It has never been seen before!
It spares nothing and no one: rich, poor, famous or unknown. In that sense it is not selective. It simply shows that it is there and that it surfs on the largest network in existence: the connectedness of everything and everyone. Anyone who ever smiled pityingly on hearing that everything is connected to everything, that every thought, emotion and action has an effect across the whole world — the butterfly-wing effect — may now wipe that smile off their face. Connectedness is showing itself brutally in the spread of the illness the virus brings about. It also shows itself lovingly in the initiatives of solidarity and the creative solutions. Could it be that the virus is doing something on a large scale? Laying bare the essence of life, perhaps?
The monster of fear
The media keep repeating the number of sick people and the number of deaths to be mourned. Immediately. You can even follow the count live. As if death were standing at your door in person and there were no escaping it. Add to that the dramatising warnings of the experts, the terrible images of the sick, the dramatic stories of individual people and the war language of the politicians — we are at war, the invisible enemy, victims are falling, use the weapons we have — and you would be frightened by far less. The monster of fear is fed all day long in many different ways along many different routes. This kind of food wakes up your inner fear monster. To soothe the anxious emotions, you slavishly follow the news reports, because you want to be well informed and to be reassured. But you are carried away by the terrible images and the doom-laden analyses. On the one hand, the analyses certainly have their truth, in that they predict the future as accurately as possible so the insights can be put to effective and useful use. On the other hand, you can be sucked into doom scenarios as if they were happening right now. In doing so you lose your intuitive capacity and it becomes harder to distinguish between what is truly necessary and what is panic.
Listening to the fear monster has gigantic consequences. They are already noticeable. Sleep disorders, feelings of loneliness, depression and financial worries already have a great many people in their grip. Those who are in power and who want to keep control have every interest in us becoming panicky and swallowing whatever is handed to us. Not everyone will agree with this statement. That is not a problem. Just keep an eye on how things develop, where we will be asked, again and again, to collectively take steps that are not always about the essence.
Crisis as liberation
We are in a worldwide crisis situation, but something only becomes a crisis depending on the standpoint from which we look at it. If we are swept along by intense emotions, the crisis will be a reality that swallows up everything. Everything you create will be prompted by your fear.
We can also look at a crisis from another perspective. It makes us bump up against our limited convictions, views and actions, which prompts us to develop a broader way of seeing. We can learn to rise above our fears and learn to look at what presents itself from a place of stillness and observation. Emotions come to rest. The eye and the heart open to a wider reality. We begin to create from the opportunities a crisis offers us and we notice how our inspiration and creativity are kindled. It feels like liberation and an accelerated expansion of our consciousness.
Give your fear monster as little food as possible. Be selective about the reports you let in through your retina and follow the necessary measures as a form of care for yourself and for others, but widen your inner reality by staying out of the drama.
Replace fear with love and trust. Where there is love, fear cannot thrive. Listen too to the direct connection with your own source. Keep the contact with yourself and with the earth.
Breathing space
If we sleep far too little for months or years, if we poison our body with drugs, medication and alcohol, if we keep hanging on in unhealthy relationships, if we work so much that the balance between work and rest tips over, or if we ignore our deep emotions, then at a certain moment you pay the price for it. You have an accident, a major setback, or you fall ill. Your body goes into lockdown. It says stop. Time to recover and to find the balance again.
The global economic rhythm of life is now saying stop. Do you know a single indigenous people who permanently run themselves off their feet the way we do in our modern society? Do they fill their day from morning till night with so-called important activities? Are they separated from their family and their children all day long in order to do very important work? They do not. I was in the Amazon rainforest with the Quechua Indians. They work and they rest and they take the time for social contact. Does this mean that we should start living like them? Certainly not, but the spread of the coronavirus is catapulting us with sledgehammer blows towards what is truly important. The exploitation of the planet’s resources and of the human capacity to adapt is coming back into our face like a boomerang. I am not the only one who sees it, but I have been saying it for many years now. Look around you at people’s reactions and at the acts of solidarity arising out of this crisis. Many people see and feel it.
For masses of people, enough is enough. Rushing back and forth, day in day out — we cannot keep it up any longer. It makes us ill and we give it lovely names: burn-out, bore-out, de-pression, ad-dict-ion, suicidal tendencies, disorders of all kinds, … The call for more balance, for healthy air, clean water, more silence, family life, loving contact, balanced and healthy food, sustainability, honest governance and warm-heartedness has been alive for a long time. Not having it causes stress. The elastic is at breaking point. We are not going to keep quiet any more. We cannot keep quiet any more. The earth, life, the people are stirring. We are not on this earth to slave away without interruption, but to live. To live with quality. The virus reminds us of our true purpose in life. And that is to be happy, to be free, to live our essence, to be creative, to live our natural nature in connection with nature and to remember who we are.
The way things are going now, we no longer have any breathing space. Ever faster, ever more. For whom? For what? We behave like a flock of sheep, pushed in directions that others decide for us. And if we do not go along with it, the I-am-everywhere cameras and repression follow. We feel unfree and cut off from our source. The virus is rubbing our nose in the overburdening of the planet and of the human being. And let us not forget the plants and the animals either. It is time to turn the times and turn the tide. And that is happening NOW.
Ordinary life is only just beginning
The virus and its consequences have brought ordinary life to a standstill. That is not true! It was not brought to a standstill. Hectic life was paralysed! Ordinary life is getting attention and breathing space again. Just look at the measures. It is no coincidence that they point in exactly the direction of what we need.
The lung inflammations remind us that breathing is the most important thing in life, and not only literally. Breathing oxygen to the rhythm of nature, of our energetic field and of the breathing rhythm of our beautiful planet is a condition for living with ease. Thanks to the measures, with fewer cars on the road, the air has become a great deal purer in no time at all. The water too. A simple line of reasoning makes me suspect that human beings, too, can become physically, psychologically and emotionally healthier quite quickly in a relatively short time. If we are willing to wake up. The consequences of the virus land us in a nightmare from which we want to wake up as fast as possible. We are finally waking up collectively. The alarm clock is ringing. The time is NOW.
The lockdown shows us that all countries, sectors and people depend on one another. If one sector comes to a halt, that has an immense domino effect. We have never experienced this so strongly. It brings our need for connection with one another, with those close to us and for more small-scale living into sharp focus. It underlines the importance of the quality of the way we treat each other, and the quality of the decisions that governments and companies take on behalf of the collective.
We have to keep a metre and a half away from each other. Have you noticed what a blissful effect that has? You get a feeling of more personal space and a better sense of where your boundaries are. Other people’s emotional themes are less likely to linger in your energy field. At the same time, we realise that body hunger can be healed more easily through physical closeness and loving hugs. According to research, you need four hugs a day to survive, eight for ordinary maintenance and twelve for personal growth and transformation.(*) We had forgotten that. We do not have that body for nothing. Keeping our distance and not touching underline the importance of love, of being close, of support and generosity.
Let us hope that one side effect of the distancing measure is that we will get roomier seats everywhere, as in the theatre, the cinema and the aeroplane. ;-)
Communicate through social media! Good thing they exist. They can soften a lot of the sorrow of distance. At the same time, there is nothing better than personal, interactive contact.
And then there is that quarantine! At the age of fourteen I spent ten weeks in quarantine because of hepatitis. I was not allowed to read, or write, or watch television, or receive visitors, or go to school. Never have I been as mentally fit as I was after that period. Never have I studied so easily or scored such high marks. Quarantine can be a treat and a beacon of rest for your brain. The connection with yourself, your source, your imagination and your inner world is given unprecedented opportunities to manifest itself, because only in silence can they be felt. So let pupils’ brains rest for a while. Let them experience the essence of life and disconnect for a moment from goals and obligations. It will do them no harm.
(*) Source: Hetkanwel.nl
Respect for life beyond corona
The consequences of the virus put everything in a new perspective. For years, mental and physical health care have been begging politicians for more people and more resources. They would not hear of it, on the contrary. Now, all of a sudden, the money can be found, because we want to save many lives. Now there are white sheets hanging from the windows and health workers are being applauded. They are being honoured for their unconditional dedication. Even the king mentioned them. The professions that form the basis of the fundamental functioning of society are now fully in the picture. It is not the overvalued television stars, sports people, influencers, CEOs, singers or actors earning gigantic sums who are needed most, with all due respect for their work. It is the people on an ordinary wage who turn out to be vital. Even the bin men are getting a mention now. May I assume that all these professions will also be given the appreciation they deserve after the crisis?
Scientists and politicians say they are concerned about the many sick and the many dead and are pulling out all the stops to limit the damage. That is praiseworthy, but what would it be like if they deployed the same resources and showed the same motivation for the countless people who lose their lives every year through other illnesses, in traffic, in regions where people live in appalling conditions, through environmental pollution, domestic and sexual violence, distorted relationships between men and women, crime, in pointless wars that are not the wars of the people but of leaders cut off from themselves? Could those in power call a halt to these social viruses that have been keeping themselves alive for years, for centuries? Now that would be awareness! That would be a sign that we have truly understood respect for life and the language of the virus.
A small example illustrates the above. Did you know that greatly underestimated noise pollution claims 1.6 million healthy years of life annually through indirect consequences such as heart attacks, sleep disorders, depression and obesity? One billion people suffer hearing loss and many have tinnitus, which makes working and achieving good learning results hard. (*) As far as I am concerned, the same zeal may be shown for these situations and for all the others I have not named.
(*) Source: Hetkanwel.nl
The spring of the new times is dawning
The old global systems have been tottering for years. All systems, small and large, that are built on convictions of consciousness which no longer serve are crumbling away. The foundations are shaking. That is not a bad sign, but a powerful signal that the new, an enriching consciousness, is descending. The times are changing. The tide is turning. Large groups of people long for a world with more harmony, love and connection. Not as a romantic notion, but as the reality in which they want to raise their children and give meaningful shape to their own lives.
New times that want to break through inevitably cause chaos and conflict. You could compare it to a seed that feels, as the earth’s surface warms, that spring is announcing itself and that wants to grow. Sometimes it wears a little helmet in order to drill through the surface of the earth as a tender young plant. To the onlooker it seems like gentle growth, but if you film the process and play it back in slow motion, you notice that motivation and perseverance are needed to reach the sunlight and become a colourful flower. It is the same with the new consciousness. Behind the apparent chaos, order lies hidden. Through conflict we evolve towards more insight and more harmony. So we are standing at the birthing bed of new times and new systems.
We remember who we are
A birth never comes unexpectedly. It is prepared during the pregnancy. That is why I have every confidence in the new times. Many of you have been preparing for years. You have faced your old themes and systems and let go of what was no longer workable. You have dived into the fascinating world of your emotions and set free what could be set free. Since then you can carry more light and your willingness to share it daily with your fellow human beings keeps growing. You have noticed that your efforts have borne fruit. You are freer, more loving and you have (as good as) lost your limiting judgements. Your life has changed. It has deepened. You have discovered the value of your presence in your body and on earth, just as you have discovered your personal energy field and the collective field in connection with the universe. To your surprise, or perhaps not, you have found that you are far more than who you thought you were. You feel your infinite potential fizzing inside you. You know what gratitude and love can bring about on a small and a large scale. You have long dreamed of spreading light and love among people. Sometimes you were even impatient. You know that there is a time for everything. The time is NOW. Conscious BEING is NOW. It starts with yourself. Where have you heard that before?
You know who you are, you who are in direct connection with your source.
You know who you are, you who can be nothing other than love.
You know who you are, you who live your feminine essence.
You know who you are, you who live your masculine essence.
The masculine and the feminine essence hand in hand. You could not imagine a greater transformation. What does that have to do with corona? Everything. That is where it begins. With a deep respect for who you are as a man or as a woman — and all other forms — you can only have respect for the other party and for the life that comes forth from it. That life deserves every care, through leaders who are in contact with their essence. The financial, religious, economic, political, educational and other branches of society can remember their true essence once again and rid themselves of the mechanisms that no longer serve the planet and humanity. In that way the planet and people get healthy lungs again and enough breathing space to love, to dance, to create and simply to be.
Bore yourself creatively
Perhaps you are one of those people who now has an ocean of time at their disposal. You can choose boredom, or you can convert your available time into consciousness and creativity. It is an ideal time to tidy up your house, but above all to cast a reflective glance into your inner house. How are things in there? Are you satisfied with yourself and with your life? Is there a place of inner stillness within you? Are you living the life you dreamed of? What can you let go of? What could be different? What did the little child in you dream of? Which steps can you take now and after the lockdown to make those dreams come true? How creative are you still? What can you do now to kindle your creativity again? If you have children, they will help to stimulate you. It can be done without children too.
A few tips that can kindle your inspiration and creativity:
· Write a song, a poem, a play, even if you think you cannot.
· Dress up and pretend you are an actor. Which characters do you play? Which deep longings surface as a result? Insights?
· Write your life story. Or turn it into a comic strip. A song. A poem. A dance.
· Imagine that you are an inventor. Invent something that is meaningful for a particular domain in the world.
· Gather candles in the middle of the table. Put out all the other lights and tell thrilling stories together with the people you live with.
· Study something you have long wanted to know more about. The internet is packed with material.
· Meditate daily, do yoga exercises, go to your inner silence with themes that interest you. Reflect, contemplate. Here again the internet can be a source of inspiration.
SolidariTIME and essenceTIME
So no panicky scrambling, but good care for yourself, for your fellow human beings and for everyone dear to you. Seize the opportunities for a new world. The country, the nation, the government, they are giving you all the time for it. And that has never been seen before. That alone underlines the new. Look at your life and at the world from your inner stillness. Live light, live consciousness and create the most beautiful things you can imagine, so that the right people are drawn to the right positions.
I wish you good health and all the breathing space you need to unfold your individual consciousness and your world consciousness.
The love/consciousness virus — Global living in Awareness
What if we were to spread the love virus worldwide, a love pandemic?
Et si nous propagions le virus de l’amour dans le monde entier, une pandémie d’amour ?
Als we nu eens wereldwijd het liefdesvirus verspreiden, een liefdespandemie?
Hilde Van Bulck
Speaker • Writer • Constellation facilitator • Organisational advisor • Consciousness activator