Rising from the Bones of a Dying World
The way forward is the way back
“Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure,
soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business,
passion instead of foolery, finds no home in
this trivial world of ours.”
― Hermann Hesse
We were sick long before this deadly virus reared its ugly face onto our modern-day doorsteps.
Covid-19 is just one among many symptoms that are ailing our already diseased and decaying civilization.
We must ask ourselves: Who are we? Who the hell were we BEFORE the pandemic altered our lives?
Were we not, at least most of us, just insanely busy people, over-medicated and depressed, chronically diseased, obese and anxiety-ridden, carrying around immense debt, living paycheck to paycheck, bogged down and running around doing trivial things to perpetuate ourselves in a culture that had us evading our own souls?
Everyone lured into the choking arms of haste and progress, never seeing the golden eternity, never knowing what it means to be truly ALIVE, never becoming more than a career-oriented fast-paced TV spectator, working solely for the privilege of CONSUMING while the junk piled up and our brains too cluttered to experience the sheer nakedness of our own miraculous existence.
Suddenly, an unforeseen pestilence has caused a great disruption in our day to day lives. A pandemic, a novel virus, a black swan event has brought all of our lives to a complete standstill. What now? Nothing is ever going to be the same. How shall we proceed?
The comfortable little middle-class cave that most of us have been hibernating in is starting to crumble. The gods of security that we’ve all surrendered our lives to long ago have now forsaken us. The curtains have been pulled back on the reality of just how insecure and absurdly vulnerable we all are in this mad world.
What if the great 21st-century pandemic is nothing other than nature delivering us a stark reminder that we’re living out of tune with the natural vibrations of the Earth?
We’re not the gods we think we are. A reset is upon us.
There’s a little part of me that thinks this unforeseen pandemic, as tragic as it is, could possibly be the long-overdue catalyst that sparks a much-needed radical shift in the consciousness of mankind. A reawakening. A rebirth. It must, or we’ll continue on down the same well-worn path to barbwire ruins.
Turn off the news. Try to forget about the chaos in the world for a moment. Go outside and take a look at the beautiful blue skies. Probably the bluest skies you’ve ever seen.
Breathe in the clean spring air of the day, the purest air you’ve inhaled in a long time, and gaze up at the “peaceful singing stars” of the archaic night. Everything is going to be okay, folks, it’s going to be alright.
Better than ever before if only we seize the opportunity. The earth is begging us modern-day heathens to temper our feverish little lives a bit and relish in its forgotten beauty. We’ve wavered too far from the essentials.
We’ve traded in the majestic wonder of the world for the nine to five hustle-bustle lifestyle, falling victim to that sterile mode of endless consumption and suburban desolation as we whiz around the planet inside fancy little motorized boxes that we likely can’t afford.
We were sick long before the pandemic arrived. And we are sick of being sick.
One of the most perceptive voices of our time, Dr. Zach Bush, a triple board-certified physician, and founder of Farmers Footprint, recently wrote:
“From the earliest moments of birth we are separated from nature, pulled from the womb by gloved hands, sterile hospital equipment, recycled air-conditioned air, plastics, carpets, paints, polyester car seat linings, plastic bottles, rubber soled shoes.
So rarely do we get engaged with mother nature now. We need to begin to reimagine everything — technology, products, homes, schools, communities, transportation, in the context of our natural world.”
Today, with the whole civilized world pretty much shut down, what we’re realizing is that we don’t NEED to shop and be constantly buying and eating all this shit and working stultifying jobs all hours of the day to sustain a habituated lifestyle that was robbing us of a joyful, creative life in the first place.
We don’t need to go back to the old ways of living. Relentless consumption, senseless urgency, greed and envy, blind obedience, atrocious eating habits, bourgeois sensibilities, empire, and mindless entertainment have eaten up most of our lives already.
The end of what WAS is needed most.
Out with the old in with the new.
Out of the darkness of winter into the light of spring. Shedding our skin to the past. Death before resurrection. Seed before life.
As Henry Miller so poetically voiced decades ago, “Everything, at this crucial point, lies in the attitude which we assume towards the moment. If we accept it as a death we may be reborn and continue on our cyclical journey. If we regard it as an ‘end’ we are doomed.”
The world is overflowing with awe-inspiring beauty that we rarely see or experience in today’s world. But things are changing.
Just this week, I’ve seen more people create art and share it online than ever before. I’ve seen more people watch the sunset over a gorgeous lake by my house than I have the whole year. And it’s a beautiful thing. Blankets are spread out in the grassy fields and families, once again, are having picnics on the neglected soil of this marvelous earth.
Life is making new demands and people are starting to adjust and decouple from the superficial routine of their old lives.
Refocus. Reevaluate. Reimagine.
Perhaps a revolution is upon us, a revolution of higher consciousness and poetic simplicity — an overdue middle-finger to the idol of progress and a return back to the soul-nurturing, elemental things. “The closer you get to real matter, rock air fire and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is,” as Jack Kerouac wrote.
When was the last time you awoke supine in the dewy grass while the birds warbled in the ancient dawn?
When was the last time you camped carefree in a meadow, chopped wood, or looked up at the midnight milky way of wonder?
It’s time that we gaze back at the “distant sleepy past” and recapture the primal spirit of the universe. It’s the only way back to the Garden that we’ve been torn away from.
We’re lost and desperately seeking and we’ll continue seeking in vain until we “learn to see with other eyes.”
The time is ripe. The way forward is the way back — to resuscitate our primordial spirit and, in the words of Henry Miller, to discover one’s destiny, “making a life in accord with the deep-centered rhythm of the cosmos.”
Can you see it?
Community gardens, neighbors helping neighbors, more candlelight and less blue light, a joyous rebellion, a refusal “to subscribe to the general demand” of eager consumption, a total reconstruction of our frivolous economy because our warped appetites will have waned, our lives decorated with poetry, music, and purposeful work instead of the degrading cog in the machine ways we’ve succumbed to.
Can you see it?
Rucksack wandering, all of us out in nature on weekends drunk on wonder, Zen and poetry, a little demented but alive, barefoot in meadow afternoon reverie, campfires and stars and stories of old.
Our rugged old rucksacks filled with the great books of Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman, as we go out and explore nature and lounge around the grassy banks of the cold creeks and streams and revel in the beauty of it all.
Can you see it?
Places of vast greenery where children run wild through wildflower meadows. Where the sun spills through the dew-drenched pines and we all congregate in the afternoon shade of a mighty sycamore and drink good beer with good cheer and laugh at the old ways we used to live.
I know my dreamy romanticism is shining bright right now, but I can see it. “We must do the ridiculous in order to touch the sublime”, as Henry Miller reminded us.
Perhaps if we all untangled ourselves from the soul-sucking web of civilization for a while, like we're doing now, we’d see that this little romantic idea is not so romantic after all. This is how we evolved. This is how we lived and thrived for most of our existence as human species — small communities and tribes integrated into the natural wonder of the world, doing purposeful work.
As Dr. Bush writes, “True health stems from an integral relationship to nature, and longevity depends on a deep connection to community.”
The time is ripe. We can do it. And the good news is — a lot good folks already are.
Start off small. Refuse to be a mindless consumer. Get out of debt. Decondition yourself from our manic culture of manufactured appetites. Read the great works of literature and philosophy. Create what your inner being is telling you to create. Slowly implement nature back into your life. Run barefoot on the earth again. Get off your phone and into the dirt. Plant flowers. Plant vegetables. Be still more often and live more deliberately in a world of “mad ranting action-seekers.”
Paradise, my friends, is everywhere. We just need to wake the fuck up to see it. As Robert Anton Wilson once said, “Nobody sees the obvious, nobody observes the ordinary. There are more miracles in a square yard of earth than in all the fables of the Church.”
I’ll end with a powerful stream of consciousness from the great American mystic, Terrence Mckenna:
“We have to create culture, don’t watch TV,
don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR.
Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space
and time where you are now is the most immediate
sector of your universe, and if you’re worrying about
[Donald Trump or The Kardashians] or somebody else,
then you are disempowered, you’re giving it all away
to icons… This is shit-brained,
this kind of thinking.That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you
and your friends and your associations, your highs,
your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears.
And we are told ‘no’, we’re unimportant, we’re
peripheral.‘Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.’
And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play
in that game. You want to reclaim your mind
and get it out of the hands of the
cultural engineers who want to turn you
into a half-baked moron consuming all this
trash that’s being manufactured out of
the bones of a dying world.”
