Gateway to Belonging and BeWilderment
Mother-Queen Corona, maligned for her ruthless ways (could it be otherwise, given our ruthlessness to Earth?), claimed the global stage at the crest of 2020, in sync with the much anticipated Saturn-Pluto-Jupiter conjunction in Capricorn—harbinger of death and transformation in our structures and systems—shouting: Go to your rooms! Think on your errant ways! Listen to the Natural World. Donning the guise of a biological threat to all, to the Breath that sustains us, we obeyed.
I am among the lucky to have felt the Blessing, rather than the Sacrifice, visited by Corona, to feel nourished by the gifts of Time and Quiet that have softly settled over the Land (with the exception of the cacophonous 8pm Happy Howling Hour). My watch words have been Slow Down, Simplify, and Savor. I have dropped into more instinctual rhythms and creative impulses, a deepened attentiveness to inner events needing healing and metabolizing, and to my relationships with the great pulsating world of the Garden outdoors.
Corona has also inspired me to seek understanding and connection with global online networks, where I have found much wisdom and kinship. Too, I have deepened my awareness of the Traumas we all know, and of what Healing entails. I have grown my capacity to forgive, to let go of old hurts and resentments, and found rejuvenation in family relations. I have contemplated with others the true meaning of Vulnerability, Resilience, and what it will take to ReImagine our world. First, I feel, we need to practice UnKnowing, and Be-Wildering.
Lastly, the gift of Time has allowed me to reawaken my Creativity and Play—in the grounded domains of Garden, Home, and Food, and in the airy sphere of Writing and Ideas. A year on, I will see how Corona returned me to a deeper relation to myself and to my part in Life, and that this in turn brought me into deeper relation to the larger Community of Belonging. I will thank Her.
— Diana Badger