Social distancing has unexpectedly appeared in our lives. Its need to redefine human space is creating a new way of perceiving ourselves. A process that is moving toward a redefinition of the political, social, and economic structure. But what do we feel when we look deeper? It's as if we sense a transformation under our skin, shaking every certainty.
Our bodies are receiving programmed impulses. Existence is changing. It's a bit like thinking that until now, each of us was moving on a thread, perfectly balanced, governing our every movement. A parallel progression confronting variables we had no clear understanding of. The thread suddenly unraveled, intersecting with the unexpected. The result: a complicated tangle. The coronavirus places us back in a reversed dimension, where we find ourselves spectators of a video game. The freedom of movement of every limb is now subject to rigid rules, essential for survival. Before us, a scenario composed of multiple pieces. For each of us, social indicators that arouse surprise.
The aspect to explore, therefore, is that the Covid-19 pandemic, along with its dramatic manifestation, presents us with a redefinition of ourselves. It almost seems to imagine us outside of our bodies, observing us in a design marred by its beauty, the desire to recompose our identity, with renewed colors. The protagonist of this remarkable perception is our fragility.
A delicate measure. It almost seems as if we can finally embrace its strength. " When I am weak, then I am strong ." (Quote) From this perspective, it's a bit as if we were witnessing, in a time of deprivation of freedom , the proclamation of a vital force that had been denied for the last twenty years. Human existence was orienting itself, almost disproportionately, toward a model of false perfection.
In it, fragility was interpreted weakly. A representation of failure, of human temperament. Fear of the coronavirus is like a firebird. The phoenix has two wings , one of which becomes the opportunity to reclaim our physical and spiritual plan, which can be reborn in existential balance. The answer thus becomes the attention we pay to our intimacy, in a global upheaval of destructuring relationships. This is the time to center ourselves.
Recognizing that fragility does not imply inadequacy, but rather brings with it great strength. It can guide us to reconciliation with ourselves and with others. It's not an easy path, yet attention to suspended time can become the universe's second chance. In a society geared toward speed , the pandemic becomes a human experience aimed at understanding, at silent listening. A reconnection with the places, with the space we inhabit. Confronting them opens us to resistance and adaptation. In this way, rediscovery and rediscovery of one's own identity can occur.
Paving the way for a new path that nourishes the body (soma), and from it, the blossoming of the soul (anemos). The uncontrollable nature of the pandemic becomes the opening for an inner revolution. The deprivation of freedom, almost paradoxically, is restoring us to a new freedom. One that sees us uncorked from the centrifuge that sucked us in. Rushing, frenetic. A fast-paced time, in which we have come to no longer recognize one another. Emotionally distant from life. Beings who, faced with a space of idleness, felt the burden rising again. The tension of duty, on the other hand, "wasted time." Yet that was productive time. The beauty experienced in admiring a landscape. The flow of fascination in observing a photograph, a place, an encounter, a kiss, an embrace. Today we cannot kiss, we cannot hug, we cannot touch.
We are not allowed to interpret a vibration born from a meeting of the skin. We are denied the dance of handshakes. Covid-19 can thus become, in its unreasonable, undeserving, implored impediments, redemption. We can return to listening . The anemos (soul), in fact, is the wind. It is like a wind that reaches our spirit, to blow away everything that has dusted beauty. A kind of salvation that frees us from annihilation. A key to profound interpretation is the one we can extrapolate from the symbolism of the coronavirus. A new revelation of wonder, and of the grace that has made us part of the wonder of creation.
The traumatic times we are living in can become an opportunity to abandon a part of ourselves, harvesting the seeds of what is growing stronger through resistance. Ready to begin again, in an acknowledgment that essentially marks physical distance. Human beings bring with them social life, which they will share again.
Rose of Jerome
