It is not up for debate or a matter of belief: everything is connected. Everything is interconnected. Everything is interdependent. Everything. A virus impossible to see with the naked eye has changed the world in a matter of weeks. Society as we know it, regardless of location, has been disrupted.
This does not mean that some are not still trying to continue on with business as usual, despite all the evidence that business, commerce, capitalism, ‘as usual’ is of detriment to us all.
See, the Disability Justice community is saying, we cannot have an effective system of healthcare when profit is all we think about.
Look here, the Indigenous nations point out, notice how our choices matter because we are of the Earth and the Earth is of us.
I’m here for you, the organisers say, as they set up Mutual Aid projects to get food and clothing and medication to their communities.
This year I decided to start meditating on the daily again, but to only do Metta practice. This is a practice of offering, of wishing genuinely for the health, wellbeing, and safety of others, of compassion, of love.
When I first learned Metta, it was the only form of meditation I did. Even when I introduced shamatha to my practice, it took a secondary role to Metta. Metta became my every breath for a while. Sending it to strangers on the street, riding the Underground, in the busy museums of London, this is how I realised the power of the practice.
When I first learned it, I thought it was a bit woo. Sending thoughts and prayers when people need action, responses, care, consideration. But Metta is a reminder that what you do matters. It’s not about you, and it’s all about you. You are not the only being and the happiness and wellbeing of all beings are intrinsically linked to your own. When my neighbours feel safe, when they are content and at ease, they do not act from fear and so I feel safe and am content and at ease. When any of us has enough to eat and a stable home and access to the medical care we require, we do not live in fear, worn down by anxiety. When I care about you the way I care about myself, I see that what serves must serve us all, or we will tear ourselves apart.
Each morning I sit and say:
May you be happy.
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you have ease of mind.
Each morning I sit and make this wish for those who have this virus, or a loved one with it. For those working the front-lines to treat and care for a too quickly increasing number of patients. For those who are dying alone, and those who must be separated from a loved one while they die. For those who are immunocompromised and isolated. For those in the role of caregiver. For those for whom home is not a sanctuary, trapped with their abuser or family members who do not accept their sexual orientation or gender identity. For those living with mental illness, who find themselves triggered and inflamed, unable to connect with friends or therapists. For those in pain, who crave the touch of bodyworkers to strengthen and support them. For those who work with the bodies of others, bringing ease and health and pleasure, whose healing work is suddenly the worst thing they could do. For those who have lost their jobs, who may lose their housing, who are waiting for intervention or revolution to ensure this doesn’t put them on the streets or in insurmountable debt. For those who do not have a shelter beyond what they have made with canvas tents, cardboard, salvaged plywood, or just a blanket. For those who live with addiction and cannot get what they need — be it the drugs and alcohol they use to medicate or the support to be or stay clean. For those on a budget, who can never, could never, buy more than they can afford, which has for too long not even been enough to cover what they need. For those who render their capacity for empathy small, who buy more than they need, who succumb to Capitalism and try to turn a profit from the desperation of others. For those who do not have access to a toilet, to showers, to a warm bed, to tissues, to medicine, regardless of whether they are ill or will become ill. For those in jobs deemed essential services, who must quarantine themselves from their families and risk contamination and infection as they fill our medication and stock the shelves at the grocery store and keep our utilities running so we have light and heat and water. For those so gripped by fear they are denying the reality, putting themselves and others at risk through their ignorance. For those so disconnected from their own humanity they ignore the warnings, refuse to listen to the facts, and insist on putting others at further risk. For those who use this time to enact inhumane, unethical, morally reprehensible policies instead of taking the time to pause, to consider, to see…
Everything is interconnected. Everything is interdependent. Everything.
This time is uncertain, but that has been true of every single day of your life.
Next time you think you are too small or insignificant to make a difference, to matter, remember what a virus we cannot see with our eyes has done. Our response to it matters. How we learn to see beyond ourselves or even those closest to us matters. What we do (and don’t do) doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
What we choose this moment informs the next. The future is unwritten.
The question is, how are you going to let this moment change you?
I don’t want us to go back to normal. May we learn from this. May we learn the value of taking care of each other on a scale so grand we can’t go back. May this change you and me and all of us in ways we have as of yet only imagined.
In Love and Liberation.
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This blog was originally published on Medium.
Visit www.KaitlynSCHatch.com to see more of my work in the world, including the books I’ve written, a collection of my artwork, and the podcast Everything is Workable.