The Coronavirus Intervention: Will it Work?

12 May The Coronavirus Intervention: Will it Work?

Modern civilization has an addiction problem. One that has serious consequences for the future of life on this planet.

This addiction is global. It’s embedded in the organizing principle of most countries, and if not corrected it can lead to massive civilization collapse.

You might say it can be fatal.

The addiction is consumption, and it’s built into the fabric of our economy and our way of life. It consumes our time, our sanity, our relationships, and the natural resources of this planet. Step by step, its quest for more, more, more is like raising us higher and higher on a roller coaster, ready to plunge out of control down a steep slope of disaster.

The coronavirus can be seen as Nature’s intervention. Like someone entering a recovery program at a treatment center, where they can’t access their substance for a given period of time, Mother Nature has sent us all to our rooms to sober up.

She’s grounded us from flying, driving, going to meetings, hairdressers, gyms, restaurants, bars or cruises, until further notice. She’s taken away anything that’s not utterly necessary to show us what is necessary.

Unable to indulge our habit of consumption, the sky is clearing, carbon emissions are reducing, and the pace of life is quieting.

We are slowly sobering up.

Those who are more privileged than others, and therefore more able to indulge their addiction, are discovering what it’s like to be sober: to have time with their families, cook their own meals, clean their own houses, and otherwise slow down and stop.

Those who are less privileged, and less able to indulge, are paying a high price for our collective addiction. They are on the front lines, driving buses, working in hospitals and grocery stores, sheltering in tiny apartments, or have no home at all. They are harmed by our addiction. Many are sacrificing their lives. We have a collective responsibility to stop this harm.

Yet everybody’s talking about getting back to normal as soon as possible. When can we get the economy going? When can we go out to restaurants again? When can we party on the beach? Just like an addict, people say, “Who cares if it means we’ll be sick longer, or that more of us might even die? We need our fix!” This is understandable. It’s normal to want that.

But it’s a tricky stage of recovery when the addict starts bargaining for exits – where can I get a drink, shoot up, or pop a pill, and end this horrible anxiety of withdrawal. This is a dangerous time for freedom.

Ideally, the recovering addict does more than just dry out. They look inside; they examine their wounds, their pain, and the effect their addiction has on their loved ones. They do some healing work, compare notes with others, and take time to feel again. It’s not an easy process as anyone who’s been through recovery can tell you.

I’ve spoken before about how cocooning in our homes is a kind of chrysalis moment, where we enter the crucible of transformation. In the caterpillar’s metamorphosis, this is an organic process. If you open the chrysalis too soon, the butterfly will die.

When a person finally does come out of recovery, they’ve been clean and sober for a while. The time may vary, but the longer the sobriety, the better chance there is of keeping it.

Not everyone stays clean. Some relapse and have to do it all over again, or spiral even further downward, and have a steeper path to climb out.

Staying sober requires a fundamental change of beliefs and behaviors. But it is also a change of taste. At some point, you start enjoying the clear mind, the calmer nervous system. You start preferring your new state and want to keep it.

We’re not there yet with this addiction. It’s not just that there could be an uptick in viral infections. We’re still wanting to go back to the old ways. We haven’t yet had a change of heart.

We need to find ways to do things differently. We need to find new ways of changing our economy so that we can stay sober, ways that allow us to live rightly with the earth without leaving millions of people destitute.

That’s a big task. What it looks like we don’t know yet. But we need to figure it out with sober minds and a clear heart. From that change in consciousness, different solutions appear.

Only then are we ready to start a new life, one that will make the recovery period worthwhile.

To aid in our recovery, let’s reconsider the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, addressing our collective addiction.

Step 1: Admitted that we were powerless over the culture’s addictive consumption and destruction of the planet, and our environmental crises had become unmanageable.

Step 2: Come to believe that the power of Gaia, the living Earth, could run the biosphere correctly and heal the destruction over time.

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and the legislation of our lives over to the will of Gaia, as we understand Her needs through science and the study of Nature.

Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of the extent of the damage we have done to the planet.

Step 5: Globally admitted the exact nature of our wrongs.

Step 6: Were entirely ready to let the needs of Gaia override our short-sighted policies and behaviors.

Step 7: Humbly returned to simpler ways, allowing Gaia to erode our destructive habits, through forming a deeper connection with Nature.

Step 8: Made a list of all systems we had harmed, and realized the need to make amends to them all, through policies and acts of restitution, restoring damaged habitats and replenishing natural resources.

Step 9: Created direct policies, legislation, and practices to address such harm wherever possible.

Step 10: Continued to monitor the way we live upon the Earth, and when wrong, promptly expose it.

Step 11: Sought through appropriate activity and spiritual practice, our conscious connection with Gaia, seeking knowledge of the planet and the power to live collectively in harmony with Her.

Step 12: Having experienced healing and awakening as a result of these steps, celebrated and sought to help other people and places on the Earth experience this healing.

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