Early morning in that liminal space between sleep and waking. A light appears before me and inside of me, at my forehead. The light takes form and I see Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, the lost boys. Something could probably be made of that symbolism, but I’m not thinking symbolically because immediately I’m carried by a deep breath that causes me to notice I had been breathing much more shallowly before that one breath. And then there is another deep breath, and another. And now I’m breathing deeply to the tops of my lungs and refreshing all the cells in my body. My mind expands to include the lungs of other people, especially the people who are having a hard time breathing now with the Corona virus. I feel myself breathing for all of humanity, not just this seemingly singular body. I feel inspired, inspiration = taking air in.

We are each as single cells of the whole body of humanity. What one does affects the whole. Our human body right now is threatened. There is a lot of talk about respirators—not enough. Industry is racing to devise more and better mechanical hardware to help people breathe. I’m reminded of a Steely Dan lyric, “let’s throw out the hardware and do it right.” I’m not in any way suggesting we abandon our efforts to get enough respirators to the hospitals and patients that so acutely need them. But as Quantum Physics now reveals, all materiality begins in the field of energy that is available to each of us in a very intimate way— within us and around us. What if we were all to begin breathing consciously, not for our own bodies alone but for all those now struggling for air, for inspiration? What if every breath you take, you take for the entire body of humanity? We are learning now through this pandemic that we are indeed our brothers’ keeper. When we keep physical distance, we do so for all our relations. And keeping physical distance, when we are mindful of why we do so, we are brought into closer connection with our fellow human beings. Each one of us is a cell of the body of humanity.

BREATHE for your wellbeing AND breathe for your brothers and sisters.

Too bad the word trump is so overused nowadays, because it’s a useful word. In the Tarot card system there are two levels, the minor arcana symbolizing the ins and outs of worldly concerns and the major arcana symbolizing the soul’s sojourn here on earth. The major arcana is also known as the trump cards, and the soul’s journey always trumps worldly distresses and hiccups such as Mercury retrograde.

I told my friend I had to get over to my storage unit to pull out and go through a box of old tapes of talks by my teacher, Roger Weir. She said that’s the perfect thing to do during Mercury Retrograde. Apparently, this planetary condition doesn’t just come around to throw obstacles in your path and annoy you. It’s a time to do a recursive assay of past endeavors.

So, despite the 17° wind chill, I threw on my very warm leather bomber jacket and headed out to the storage unit. My jacket was so bulky and with the necessary thick gloves, I felt like an astronaut with compromised fine motor skills. I remembered the key code at the gate to the storage facility, got through, and managed to get the big outer door open. But the heavy rock that is usually there to keep the door from slamming shut was gone. However, the wind blew so hard it kept the door open. Initially. Until it blew it shut. No problem. I was inside the hallway of storage units with the light on. I’d deal with the door later. I unlocked the padlock to my unit, hung the lock over the sliding latch, and lifted the roll-up metal door.

That’s when things began to get a little fuzzy. I found the boxes I needed and began to move them from my unit down the hall toward the outer door. What made me think to check? It’s a bit of a blur now. I guess I wanted to make sure I didn’t get locked out without the outer key and with my purse inside my unit that was wide open. Where was that storage unit key ring?  I didn’t remember putting it anywhere. I rolled the door to my unit down to see if the keyring was hanging from the padlock, but the padlock was gone from where I did remember hanging it on the sliding latch. Clearly it had fallen off when I rolled up the door, something that has not happened in the past. I looked around and found it in an open box, logically just below where I’d hung it on the slider. Its little key was still inside the lock, but where was the rest of the keyring—the larger main door key and the red spongy tab to the key ring? And for that matter the ring itself—you know the kind that you have to slide a fingernail in to wedge open? I shuffled through that open box and found the big key to the main door. But how did they both come off the spiral ring? Well I’ve got the necessary parts, I thought. It’s too cold to concern myself with anything else right now. I secured the two loose keys in a closed pocket in my bomber jacket and proceeded.

The four boxes I planned to take were now waiting inside at the outer door and all keys were accounted for. I slung my purse over my shoulder, closed and locked the unit, and managed to slide the boxes out the door and get them into my car without any doors slamming on me—that wind was still fierce. As I drove away I thought, I guess that was one of those Mercury Retrograde experiences that people complain about. But there was another level of reality that totally trumped the planetary system. When I think of all the things that could have gone wrong during this little excursion but didn’t, I know that turning toward and surrendering to Divine harmony truly helps me navigate past obstacles and energies that would undermine my forward progress. That God’s principle is one of ease and grace; that it is for me not against me, and when my heart keeps its eye on that prize, keys don’t get lost, doors don’t slam on me, gates open, and my work gets done with delight and congruency.  

In the beginning human beings lived in a participation mystique with all of nature. About 6,000 years ago they left that garden within which there was only being without knowing. They didn’t leave because of shame or guilt but because of curiosity and the desire to know the real. They have been differentiating from that original mystique until now.
 
Perhaps something went awry. Or perhaps to know the real they had to know fear, anguish, terror, and suffering as well as loveliness, harmony, being well-cared-for, and peace. The real is a harmonic tension of opposites. They learned that they themselves were of all that they experienced outside themselves. They fell into the mystique of self and lost balance—too much of a good thing. They became mesmerized into a dis-eased state. Now human beings are suffering the final stage of that disease—late-stage individualism.
 
The cure may be found in We. All of us here—neighbors, pets and plants, both wild and tame, the weather, the planets, our suffering, our leaders, psychotics, and sociopaths.
 
What will future human beings say of the ones who went before? That they so hungered for personal self-interest they ate themselves into oblivion? That they became so preoccupied with individual obsessions, though they’d set out to know the real, they lost their way and couldn’t see it? That they spent thousands of years searching for the truth that was always right in front of them—in the cat’s purr, the potted shamrock’s resurrection, in the wildness of weather, in the myriad answered prayers that so often went unnoticed?
 
Or will they say of those who went before that only when humanity itself was threatened by extinction they finally accepted that love, the connective tissue, is the real.
 
In the series The Americans, about KGB agents living as an American family, what continually breaks through the ideologies—both American and Russian—and the violence, the subterfuge and deception, is each character’s humanity, their conscience, their love.
 
In the series Transparent, what breaks through all the gender confusion and neurosis and severance from ancestral lineage is each character’s humanity.
 
What is it to be simply humane? What if we each were to become laser focused on love. To have our heart simply relax open, put down old traumas and grievances and grief. To atone, become at-one with our race—the human race. And with our planet, thus far the only place we can survive as bodies.
 
What if each healthy cell (the individual) of this diseased body (the human race) was to assert its strong force, love, toward each diseased cell?
 
What will future human beings say of those who went before? That we were on the brink of annihilation and pulled it back? That each one of us took up the responsibility of Frodo and Samwise, and with all our humanity, love, and focus carried that ring that held the disease to the mountains of Mordor, endured our Golems to the end, and in the final hour flung the ring and the Golem into the eternal fire wherein the disease could be completely unmade.  
 
No longer mystified, now knowing this human life is a divine mystery and we each are a relevant component. We are being asked now to actually be real and awaken from the neurotic figments of our individual imaginations.
 
*Thank you Summer Wood for the writing prompts

​Dear Immune system,
I’m sorry for the toxins in the air we breathe. I’m sorry for the genetically modified foods that I do everything in my power to avoid, but nature has no real boundaries, so it’s possible we get some in our diet. I’m sorry for the depleted soil, for the polluted water. Please forgive me. I love you immune system. Thank you for doing the best you can, for enduring this onslaught, for your faithful service to keeping this body going.
 
We are a spirit who has come into this body, this world, this life, at this time for a purpose. The natural world is suffering and you along with it, for you are nature. I am doing everything I can to help you under these conditions. You are not alone. The food I give you is of the highest quality available to me. It may not be pristine as it was in a primordial age, but it still carries nourishment, and I feed it to you with love and care. Please accept this sustenance. You don’t have to fight against it. In this time, the 21st Century, in this place, this is what we have. Please accept this nourishment in the spirit in which it is given, with love and care for your continued wellbeing.
 
Though this time is a difficult one for you, I offer the remedy of just letting go, relaxing, and accepting the love and sustenance that comes. Please know that I am doing the best I can to help you in your efforts to keep this body alive and capable of fulfilling the purpose for which we’ve come into this life at this time.
 
Thank you immune system. I love you. I’m sorry you have to struggle so much. Please forgive me.

I am walking through our local health food market without a list, feeling for what I will want to eat in the next few days. A woman whom I don’t know passes me and says, "I saw you and thought you were Ann Bancroft. But then I thought, no that can’t be, she's, you know."

"Dead," I say. I'm not timid about the great wonder. We both chuckle and then I say with a smile, referencing one of Ann Bancroft's great roles, “I used to be Mrs. Robinson.” (When I was married.) We both chuckle again and walk on.

Later I revisit the incident in my mind and I am reminded of a visionary experience I had years ago that came on the wings of the theme song of that same Ann Bancroft movie, The Graduate. I wrote about it in my memoir and now I feel I am being reminded by the Greater Mind that there is a love that never stops loving us.

Excerpt from Love on The Brink of History:
"One afternoon before I became involved with the Gnostic church, I was out doing housewife errands and pulled into the parking lot of a home-improvement store. I parked my car on the burning, midsummer tarmac, and as I walked toward the electric doors to the air-conditioned vastness of nuts, bolts, and lawn chairs, I passed a store employee. He was setting up some potted plants under a mister at the front of the store and boldly singing out a familiar song, paying no attention to me passing by, “And here’s to you Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know.”

When I married, I took my husband's last name, Robinson. I was then Mrs. Robinson. Spirit often speaks to me through seemingly random incidents like this, which reveals an open portal for “presence” eternal. Occurrences like this are always guidance for something I’m puzzling through, or just a message from spirit to remind me of who I am and where I belong. Carl Jung called this synchronicity. I’ve recalled this experience over the years, and each time it is a real and comforting reminder of my purpose in this life."

Struggling to discipline myself to stay with my writing (I’ve begun a work of fiction), I nevertheless still need to take breaks from sitting. So after an hour at the screen I decided to do something physical which would not take too long.

Five years ago someone left a funky table across the road from my casita. I thought it was junk but hauled it over to my patio to use as a surface for potting plants. After a year of sun, wind, and snow the veneer had curled up and I was ready then to junk the table. But some salvage sensibility made me pull the veneer off. It was just press-board underneath and I bought a colorful printed piece of Mexican oilcloth to cover it. I’d overestimate the length and had a strip of the turquoise with red/orange flowers left after I'd stapled the oilcloth around the table, from the underside. The table  served to brighten up the patio and protect the raw press-board from weather.

The other day, feeling spring, I decided to replace the now rotting turquoise oilcloth with a new color.  I bought a red flowered pattern with blue and green, but this time I underestimated the size, and the piece was too small. I pulled out the leftover turquoise piece from two years ago and thought I'd go wild with two different colors and patterns. But it still wasn't enough. So I went back to the fabric store the next day. The proprietor had a yellow piece he'd sell me for half price because it was less than a yard. So now I had three colors.

My neighbor and I agreed that using all three colors looked the best. Now, during my quick break from writing, I began to staple-gun the three colors to the table (wrapping it under and stapling from underneath). Pressing the gun from that twisted position got more and more difficult each time I applied the stable gun to the under side of the table. Then the gun ran out of staples. I went rummaging for more staples, filled the gun, and then one staple got jammed. Now I needed to pull out my pliers. My break from writing was extending beyond my intended time.

I finally fixed the staple-gun but it jammed again because I couldn’t get a purchase against the underside of the table. I only needed two or three more staples and I could get back to my writing. But I just couldn’t get it, and without these last clinchers, the turquoise piece would not hold. So I turned the table upside down to lay it flat so I could staple it from above with more leverage. As I turned it over, one of the legs crumbled off. The underside of the tabletop onto which the leg was fastened had turned to sawdust. I noticed a black widow nested in the corner by another leg and an old wasp nest stuck to the underside. I didn't bother them and  now realized this table is really and truly junk—finally ready for the dump. So I got a screwdriver to pull out the staples and save the oilcloth.

The black widow was getting agitated and then a wasp appeared, buzzing around my lengthening project. I assumed she was saying, "What the hell are you doing?" Eventhough I was sure that wasp nest was old and dried up. Why would she care about it? Now I believe I was right in my translation but perhaps not in the way I’d believed at the time.

I apologized to both of them for causing an earthquake. I tried to scoot a  dustpan under the widow to take her to a new location, but she resisted; went and hid. I pushed that leg off the rotted tabletop to coax the widow out from underneath. The leg leaned off its bearing with ease, and the widow came with it. So with her riding on the table leg, I walked her out across the street to an area where I dump weeds. I apologized to her for making her a refugee.

My neighbor helped me carry the pieces of table out to the trash from where I’ll eventually have to take them to the dump.

When I told my friend this story she prized me on my mindfulness. "You could have been stung by the wasp, or bit by the black widow," (something that never really occurred to me. I was more concerned about not shooting myself in the face with the staple gun). "I'm sure it was because you did not become aggressive or loose your temper that they didn't hurt you." I suppose because I did not feel aggression or fear, to them I was just an act of nature. I guess meditating each morning really helps.  

Post Script:
This morning when I went to open the curtains the wasp was sleepily clinging to the drape. I went and got a card and a glass, as I do with spiders. I spoke gently to it and told it I would take it outside. It came along willingly as I apologized again for disrupting its nest. Then I thought to look up what wasp means as totem:

Go to work on your goals and your goals will work on you. All the good things we build – end up building us. Make a plan, keep working towards it and let nothing get in your way.
-Wasp

Perhaps the wasp was saying “What the hell are you doing? Get back to your writing.”

The reunion of four friends after months of traveling was joyful. Conversation, always intelligent, ranged from psychology to hairstyles, from politics to typography. “Oh, that’s just my ego,” one friend said to a round of laughter. “I’m not sure I even know what an ego is,” said another. More laughter. We all agreed that there should only be one space after a period, not two.
 
Later I stayed with the question what is an ego, and this image came to me of the ego as a kind of guardian of the soul, which is a gateway. We are vulnerable beings and we have all in some way been wounded by a world of harsh dualities—loving parents who loose their temper and treat us harshly; playful friends who terrorize us with their games. And those are just the benign wounds. We all know it can be much worse.
 
The ego is that part of us that bears the wounds. Protecting our vulnerability, it receives the blows and shows the scars. It makes valiant attempts at what it believes will avoid any further wounding. When one moves one’s center of awareness from the guardian of the gate to the gateway itself, one can laugh about the foibles of the ego, because as a conscious adult one can decide how much vulnerability one wants to share or not.
 
There is not a soul incarnate in a body that does not suffer. The only child suffers from loneliness. The middle child of three suffers from rejection by her siblings.  The mother suffers that her daughter wants nothing to do with her. The childless woman suffers for not having had children. We might believe that the grass is greener on the other side of our suffering but the truth does not bear this out. A deeper truth is the certainty that no matter how it looks from the other side, each person bears some degree of suffering. When we grok this we come to compassion—the deep recognition that we are all inside a conundrum of challenge that is in many ways painful, lonely, hurtful, fearful, sad…
 
Coming to the recognition that this is the condition of being human gives us the password to enter past the guardian-ego, past the gateway-soul to our spirit which has never been wounded, is not insecure, is not condemned, not fixated on pain, but whose whole enterprise is union with other spirits in the re-cognition that we are all one great glorious whirling unity.