It was nearly two months ago when the full impact of what is going on in the world right now began to hit me. I woke up on Koh Phangan, a little island in the south of Thailand, on the 14th March to texts and voice messages from friends in the UK, and from my cousin Marcello from northern Italy already on lockdown:

“I am here, we are all here… in the house. No-one goes out, and everything seems to be stuck… 400 people die here a day. I live 2km away from the hospital, and at night all I hear are the ambulance sirens”.

Not so long after, life started to change here in Thailand, too. People still arrived to Phangan from Bangkok, but there were talks (always, there are talks!) that boats would soon stop coming, and then of course, all the borders you could do your visa run at were closed. My own run to Myanmar was due for the 26th, but I ended up going earlier than planned, one day before it unexpectedly shut; miraculously waking up randomly in the middle of the night and laying there waiting for ten minutes or so for an alarm to go off at 4am (that actually never would – because the night before, I’d accidentally set it for 16:00 instead. I checked my phone at 04:01).

Everywhere, everything is crumbling. It’s not just the fear of disease that is gripping the world at large, but also fear of loss, of poverty; of not knowing what to do or what’s going to happen next.

Stock markets are crashing, the house markets are crashing, companies are closing, everyone’s losing their jobs. No-one knows what might happen in the next hour let alone in the next week. The status quo is… well. My mind’s gone blank (for once). What can we say about the status quo when it’s no longer there?

We are literally being stripped of all we’ve ever taken as given. We’re being stripped of everything that was once so familiar, as we’re plunged into darkness; into this crazy ride into the Underworld; into the abyss of the unknown.

But here’s the thing: It’s what we’ve been waiting for.

Death.

I’m not talking about the deaths arising from the pandemic, although this is inevitable for the real change we’ve been praying for to happen. I’m talking about the death of Patriarchy. Of all those old systems of structure, structure, greed and materialism we’ve been railing against for so long. They’re being dismantled.

And likewise, so are we. Dismantled from deep within. Shaken to our very core. Change out there can’t happen without change within as well. Everything we experience in our lives is a reflection of the condition of our subconscious. We create our own reality; we’re all a slice of God. Whether we like it and agree or we don’t, the truth is that we’re all connected, we are all One, and nothing can happen in our lives without our own (subconscious) willingness to partake in it.

Even the darkest corruption that we’ve been railing against in politics and in governments the world over is actually a reflection of our own shadow selves that we’re now being asked to bring up to the Light for understanding, acceptance – and transmutation. As my friend Eva would say – and did say to me, on countless occasions this past year when my own ego was crumbling, very, very slowly (and it does kind of feel like I went through something this past year that’s suddenly playing out on a macro scale)…

“This is all happening FOR you, not against you”.

Burn, baby, burn.

The time has come to wake up. Old patterns and paradigms are breaking down everywhere in greater society, and – following the law of ‘as above so below; as within so without’ from the ancient Emerald Tablet – we are also, both individually and collectively, being asked to recognise – and let go of – these patterns in our own selves too.

Because in fact, we’ve just got no choice anymore. It’s out of our hands, it’s happening anyway. We’re being (forcefully) asked to surrender – everything from our patterns of control that we think keep us ‘safe’ to our self-imposed structures on how we think we should be – or what we should be doing, or having.

None of us know what the fuck is going on, and unlike before, it’s impossible to pretend we do. The only thing that’s left is to be present in the moment and let go of the noise of our minds – something that my friend and fellow medicine woman Louise Carron Harris spoke about in this morning’s daily morning tune-in:

“Your minds at the moment are… mindfucked. This teaching right now… What Corona is teaching us right now – is the Power of Presence. It’s about you coming right here right now, learning to take every step as it comes; listening to your body … What is it I need?“

Out of the mind and back into the body. Back to the Earth. Back to Nature. Back to our own Natures. We’re being asked to surrender the Mind and all its ‘shoulds’; the restrictions we’ve mistakenly believed to be essential, as well as all those other tired beliefs (based on what, exactly? What we’ve been told all our lives? And by whom? For what purpose? All of this is being destabilised, so that the real Truth can emerge)…

Who are you, really? What do you believe in, truly? When there’s talk of death at every turn, what do you want, absolutely? When there’s nothing tangible to cling on to anymore, what can we hold in our bodies and hearts?

(And I know it’s not easy. Just the other day I found myself being pulled to transfer UK funds into Thai baht… because maybe I can save more money like this? Yep, I had to have a word with myself. Haven’t we been through this before, my dear? Oh, and how many times? Let go. Stop clinging to the cliff edge. It’s going to crumble anyway.

Choose to fly, why don’t you?

Nothing can save you now except that.

And so then. Here we all are. Forced to let go, and to trust in a higher power than the illusions we’ve been abiding by for way too long. It’s the death of who we once were and everything we thought was real – in preparation for what we are becoming. So that we can transform.

The Universe is asking us to change, and to grow. To awaken in love. To make way for the rise of the long-repressed divine feminine energy (and by this, I mean the energy of nurturing, of Oneness; of leading from the heart-space instead of the goal-oriented ego-mind, and of being truly connected once more with our own divine nature, with our own bodies, and with Mother Nature herself).

“This is Nature’s way of saving herself”, Marcello told me in another phone chat last night – something I was a teensy bit surprised at, given he’s a bit of a hotshot businessman and lawyer (I know, I know… Judgmental, much? My bad…)

Another friend posted yesterday, ‘I guess Greta’s prayers on climate change were answered’! Comments included, ‘Earth needs us to change or die’, and ‘how else do you stop the planes from flying?’

A meme I read just now said ‘kinda feels like the Earth just sent us to our rooms to think about what we’ve done’.

And someone else (who recently commented ‘how much nicer solitude sounds to self isolate’) – forwarded this quote by Gina Mayer talking of how, ‘Since the lockdown, Venice’s canals have become crystal clear. Italy’s coasts have dolphins coming nearer and nearer. Japan now has deer roaming free in the streets… China has record-breaking pollution cuts…

…What if the entire human population used this as an opportunity to restart society on a greener, more environment conscious footing? What we’re seeing in the span of a couple of days is amazing. A pipe dream‘.

It’s not a dream, though, is it? It’s becoming our new reality.

And we were born for these times, remember.

Let’s make them the best they can possibly be.

***

‘When the Earth is sick and the wild animals are disappearing, a tribe made up of people from all cultures will come to say with deeds and not with words, that Love is the source of healing and will help restore life on the planet’. – Hopi prophecy.

‘This is the Great Turning. This is what we’ve been waiting for. This is prophesized’ – Louise Carron Harris.