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.

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."