Unknowable

Normally, this time of year I'm blogging about the Spring Equinox.

But what's normal anymore?  Our sense of normalcy is out the window, in this, the Spring of the Corona Virus.

My recent posts include words like unforeseen and unknown but I don't think any of us imagined a global pandemic.

Such cataclysms were prophecied by the ancient Mayans.  It's one thing to read about catastrophic events predicted for our times, but it's quite another thing to live through them.

Sh*t is getting real.

So guess which rune I picked on the Vernal Equinox?

UNKNOWABLE.   It's the blank rune -- no glyph on either side.

The unknown.  We're not comfortable with it.  With Covid-19, much is unknown.  Hence, anxiety.

We don't know how long self-quarantine will be required.  We don't know if our loved ones will be affected -- our vulnerable parents, my brother with COPD, my niece who put on a mask and gloves and went to Florida for spring break anyway. We don't know if our health care system will be overwhelmed, or if enough ventilators and masks can be manufactured fast enough to treat patients and protect our front-line health professionals. We don't know that our leaders know what they're doing.  We don't know if they (I'm talking about one person here) are capable of grasping life-and-death urgency.


The Blank Rune.  The Unknowable.  The Divine.  

This is the rune of total trust and should be taken as exciting evidence of your most immediate contact with your own true destiny, which, time and again, rises like the phoenix from the ashes of what we call fate.

The appearance of this rune can portend a death.  But that death is usually symbolic and may relate to any part of your life....  Relinquishing control is the ultimate challenge for the Spiritual Warrior.

Here the unknowable informs you that It it in motion in your life (Is this accurate or what?).  In the blankness is held undiluted potential.  At the same time both pregnant and empty (wrapping my mind around the paradox), this rune comprehends the totality of being, all that is to be actualized.

Drawing The Blank Rune may bring to the surface our deepest fears.  Will I fail?  Will I be abandoned?  Will it all be taken away?  And yet our highest good, our truest possibilities and all our fertile dreams are held within the blankness.

Willingness and permitting are what this rune requires....  The Blank Rune often calls for no less an act of courage than an empty-handed leap into the void.  (Kind of feels like that's where we are.)  Drawing it is a direct test of faith.

And, it goes on to say, Nothing is predestined (despite the Mayan prophecy):  What beckons is the creative power of the unknown.

Whenever you draw The Blank Rune, take heart:  Know that the work of self-change is progressing in your life.  (Self-change is kicking my ass.)

Is it possible that we are in contact with [our] own true destiny?  As individuals and as a civilization?

How are we rising to the challenges of daily life in a pandemic?

I'm staying in, despite my desire to go out.  Essential trips only, at off-peak hours.  Checking in with loved ones. A daily round of disinfecting.  Lots of laundry. On my walks, I veer off the sidewalk, chatting with strangers from a distance.

I'm figuring out how to use Zoom so our meditation circle can meet next week.  This is something I've been  meaning to do but never got around to it.  Now, circumstances are demanding innovative ways to connect.

I'm also using Face time to connect with my clients.  I'm offering distance healing -- new for me --  and it turns out I can sense energy from afar.  This week I recorded a meditation to help a new client relax and prepare her body for surgery.

These may not be destiny-level changes but they are creative ways to connect when we've been advised to isolate. 

Collectively, it feels like Destiny is at hand.

It's time to ask how our government is so tragically unprepared to meet this crisis.

What values were at play when 37 of 47 Obama-era centers for disease management around the world were dismantled?

What values enabled the president to downplay briefings he was receiving about the deadly virus in January?

What values are operating when his administration wants to use a provision of Obamacare to address Covid-19 while seeking to strike it down in court? 

What values are guiding federal budgets and tax policies that benefit the ultra-rich and corporations at the expense of the middle class?

What values have gutted the EPA while the ice sheets melt and the Amazon burns?

The values that inform these actions are up for dismantling.

The death this rune portends is the death of the world as we know it.  It's time to build a new world based on new values -- unity cooperation, inclusion and love. A new world is rising like the phoenix from the ashes of this one.

This virus, spreading like wildfire across the globe, is bringing to the surface our deepest fears.

Survival level questions are keeping us up at night. Will I be able to pay my bills?  Will I be laid off?  Will my employees be eligible for unemployment?  Will banks and landlords offer deferments?  My husband is spending a lot of time on hold pursuing answers to these questions.  The good news?  Lenders and state leaders are stepping up and offering relief.

In the face of the unknown, we have undiluted potential.  The possibility of pulling together with new levels of compassion and innovation.

Italians are serenading  their neighbors.  Kids practice their violin lessons on their elderly friend's front porch.   #heartsforhealthcareworkers salutes nurses and doctors serving the public at risk to themselves.  My friend Lori, a gifted LCSW, is using TeleHealth to meet with her clients.  Kerri, yogi goddess and small business owner, offers virtual yoga classes.

We are tapping into our highest good, our truest possibilities in the spirit of service.

What the Mayans saw in the stars was not the end of the world -- it was the end of an age. Their famous calendar tracked astrological ages spanning 26,000 years.  The last one, the age of the Fifth Sun, ended in 2012.  We are living at  the dawn of the Sixth Sun.  We are witnessing the end of one world and the birth of another.

Like all labor and delivery, it's arduous.

And potentially miraculous.

The world is not ending, it is transforming.  We are here to usher in all that is to be actualized.

I have long worshiped at the altar of the Great Mystery.  I've spent a lifetime seeking the secrets of creation, the mechanics of manifestation, and exploring the unseen realms of energy and light that exists right here, a breath away, one dimension subtler than we perceive with our five senses.  I've looked for God and the Goddess, the great creative forces of Nature, in churches and the chambers of my heart.  Perhaps they are ultimately unknowable.

But the search?  It yields fruit.

In meditation, I sink into the deepest level of my existence, into what we call in energy medicine my core star light.  Its the first manifestation of my own life and light out of the dazzling darkness of the void, the inner pool of unlimited potential from whence I came.  It's empty but charged with high-voltage life force at the same time.

What beckons is the pure creative power of the unknown. 

Traversing the unknown requires self-awareness.  I'm practicing reining in my run-away thoughts as they race along well-worn neural pathways forged by worry, doubt and fear -- and consciously steering them along new trails aimed toward  hope, light and freedom.  Our Journey to Self spiritual warriors will recognize this practice!

 I'm cultivating radical trust.

I'll need my practices as we move through the unknown.  I hope you will permit yourself to receive what you need too.  It may be a long road.  It may be filled with loss.  May we be here for each other with all the grace we can muster as our world falls apart and we put it back together again one choice at a time.

There's a lot that's unknowable.

But one thing I know is who I am.  I am a being of love.  And I know you are too.

What lies beyond the known must be understood by you, not only as your potential, but as your true inheritance.  And as you say yes to what comes, the mission of your life comes crystal clear.  It's not what you do, it's how you be....

                 Beyond the Known:  Realization, Paul Selig

Be love.

The oracle card, Kali, is from Meggan Watterson's Divine Feminine Oracle.  Artwork by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessman.