The COVID-19 synchronicity.
Synchronicity usually involves a surprising similarity between ideas in the mind and objects in social or physical surroundings. This similarity can reveal aspects of the self that are hidden from conscious awareness.
COVID-19 reflects the worst in our human psyche. Insidious and destructive, it promotes only its own survival and propagation. Its damaging effects on human society and human bodies are irrelevant to its purpose. These characteristics parallel the human effects on the natural world. Both the virus and humans are like parasites destroying their host. The virus probably rode into the crowded, wet market in Wuhan, China, on wild animals, where it found fertile hosts. (For photos of the wet market in Wuhan, click here.) Until now, the wild animals and the virus had lived together without human contact in remote geographical areas. Destroyed habitats create ideal environments for coronaviruses to emerge. Perhaps the virus came from bats on sale at the Wuhan wet market or from genetic combinations of viruses from dead and weakened livestock there. The mix of the dead, wild, and slaughtered animals created this threat. And a similar threat has been growing inside the human psyche. The destruction of our own habitat by the perceived need for economic growth has set humanity on a suicidal course. Recognizing the dangers to humankind lurking in our subconscious can begin the resolution of this conflict between unchecked domination of nature and the eradication of humanity. The way out
Buried in most human minds is the memory of our social origins on this planet. We were hunter-gathers in groups of approximately 25. For survival, we were intimately dependent on each other and were sensitively tuned to the natural world. The virus is tapping our need to reignite these ancient capacities. Coincidences often show our intimate interconnections with other people. One example is simulpathity, knowing the pain of a loved one at a distance. Books on coincidences are filled with other examples of the many surprising inter-human connections. (See Sharon Hewitt Rawlette for a rich collection of these stories.) Animals, plants, trees, and us. That’s what we have here on this green Earth. We can behave as if we recognize our interdependence on our one and only planet. Or we can ignore the message of COVID-19 and blithely continue on the road to the destruction of our habitat and ultimately of ourselves.
The pandemic is forcing the ever-expanding economic engines of the world to slow down and the people of the world to stop and think about our future. China and Vietnam are prohibiting wild animal markets. Rather than slaughtering wild animals, let’s learn with them. There’s so much to consider. Humanity is at a critical choice point. Let’s bravely envision a new world.
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