One of the techniques that I teach in my Intermediate Level Shamanism Class is to discover the “wisdom of an illness” so as to assist in the resolution of the imbalance and help the client return to health.  By journeying to learn the wisdom of an illness, we can gain the lesson to be learned and thereby speed the recovery process.  Given the widespread media coverage, rampant propagation of conspiracy theories and overall environment of fear surrounding the Corona Virus Covid-19, I thought it would be interesting to ask my guides to show me the wisdom of this virus and the lessons that we can learn from it.

I asked to be shown the “Eagle View” or broad picture perspective.  The first thing which I was shown is that the intense fear of a “pandemic” is bringing into mainstream awareness how interconnected and interdependent we all are.  Living in the modern world, we often lose sight of our place as one part of the larger Web of Life.  For people living in a small tribal society there was no illusion of isolation from the rest of Creation.   Our mutual dependence upon each other and the Web of Life for our survival, food, water, shelter, medicine, safety and protection was a given fact of life; and our shared responsibilities as custodians of the land for future generations was unquestioned.  In the modern world where so many things can be purchased in isolation, delivered to our home by ordering online, purchased from a store without any meaningful thought or social interaction, myriad services hired with no personal knowledge about the provider; the awareness of the necessity to have groups of people working together in cohesion is often lost, as is our role as caretakers of the Earth with a mutual duty to our descendants.

So many of us feel isolated and yet we are so interdependent.  The fear of a “pandemic” is bringing to the forefront of our consciousness how interconnected we all are with each other and the rest of Creation.   At this point in history, this awareness can only be shown through fear because we have lost sight of the positive aspects of our shared responsibility as part of the Web of Life.  We must ask ourselves why we give so much focus to the fear of this virus spreading when we have lost sight of the reverberating effects throughout the entire Web of Life of the myriad other environmental degradations that contribute to disease, starvation, suffering and a general desecration of the planet.   As a species, we are mainly blind to the immense global impacts of localized events such as the continued discharge of radioactive waste from Fukushima that contaminates the world’s oceans, overuse of herbicides that destroy our water tables, and so many other criminally malfeasant practices of the modern world that have led to drastic environmental degradation worldwide.

The Corona Virus is now bringing into sharp focus the fact that when we touch one strand of the Web of Life that the entire Web vibrates.   We must be more mindful of our actions, not just with regards to infectious diseases and how they spread, but also in terms of caretaking the Web of Life itself.  We are being reminded with great urgency that what we do is not in isolation; and that the effects of what we do reverberates outwards throughout the Web of Life.   We are being called to step back into our role as custodians of the Earth and to take responsibility for the broader impact of our actions on the entire Web of Life.

Another big lesson from the Corona Virus is bringing to awareness the great amount of fear in the world that is so readily triggered (and manipulated) by the media.  It points to something deeper in our collective consciousness; a repressed awareness that we have been mistreating the Web of Life for generations, that we feel deeply guilty about our transgressions, and that we harbor an underlying terror that eventually our abuses of the Earth will come back to bite us.  

We do not like to speak of this fear, it lurks in the shadow still, below the level of conscious daily awareness, and yet it is ever present, affecting our thoughts, words and actions.  By remaining in the shadow, the fear is more subtle; it cannot be spoken of and is an unconscious unease, a feeling that impending doom awaits us without any clearly conscious understanding of why that feeling of fear exists.

When we confront our shadow, shine the light of awareness onto it, we understand that this fear arises from our unspoken guilt about how we have abdicated our responsibility to care take the Web of Life.  This guilt about the damage we have done to our planet means that many of us unconsciously believe that we do not deserve to be here, to have life, to remain a part of the Web.  Within this guilt is the fear of punishment, that the world will somehow exact retribution for our transgressions.   However retribution is not a natural part of the Web; vengeance and retribution are human creations, born of guilt and fear.   The lesson that is being taught by the Corona Virus is that we must become more consciously aware of how interconnected we all are with the Web of Life and step back into our natural roles as custodians of the Earth.   When we re-establish that connection, we find our oneness with the Web of Life and can once again find our grounding.  From this place of stability, we will no longer be so easily uprooted and manipulated through our unconscious fears.

This is the wisdom of the Corona Virus; will we listen to its guidance?  Will we reaffirm our connection to the Web of Life and use this lesson that we are all interconnected to step into our responsibility as caretakers tending to the Web of Life?