Continuing my convalescing journey with Covid, I’m amazed at how little I’m able to do and accomplish in a day. I rarely leave my bed still, even after three months. For a person who took much pleasure in giving to others, it’s ironic that I’m now literally stripped of the ability to do so. When I’m not crying and completely dejected about the situation I am faced with, it’s almost laughable and ironic that I’m now confronted to have to finally give to myself instead.

New layers of awareness come to me in my Covid convalescing. My newest piece that of Vulnerability. To be an extremely active and motivated person and then stripped of all my strength of physicality, I have a peek into this delicate area. Now regular life activities shine to me with a new hue. Visits with doctors appointments, and actually being on the street, I feel fragile, old and shellshocked. The world feels intimidating, chaotic and much too stimulating for my brain and nervous system. The overload making me feel brittle and small. I wonder to myself how many other people are walking around feeling exposed in this way? Like a mad woman I must pull myself together on the outside hoping no one notices what’s going on in the inside. Hiding this vulnerability until I’m safe again resting in my cocoon. An unraveling and realization that I am not normal and no longer function like I used to. I had taken for granted the ease in which I moved in the world. Again my heart goes out to all the people that struggle in the world. I didn’t know how hard it was for them and continues to be. To those people whose diseases or ailments do not seemingly get better. You are spiritual warriors!

No energy for greeting the day and sun. No energy for striving and accomplishment. I open the door to the room of lost hope to cry and rest and give it all up. The beauty and excitement I once thought the world was, seems like a distant memory. The dark veil that covers everything is thick and heavy, I can hardly see the light. I wonder again and again how will I do it? How will I live like this? Will I ever be the same?

My intuition speaks to me in pictures. The latest relapse in my physicality coming as an image of me of holding onto an anchor and sinking down in the dark ocean. Marriaged with deep sensation of heavy bones and a tiredness so profound that I have no resistance. The word long-haul pulling my emotions in every which way. Inertia. This journey of non-resistance making me curious. Perhaps the bottom of this ocean is where the silence and stillness is found. A death... I let go and I fall asleep, riding the anchor until…. Perhaps I find the key to some healing, perhaps I find myself. Perhaps I find nothing or maybe everything. It’s our human striving that hopes for some special answer. That there will be some treasure at the bottom of that sea. But maybe it’s the simple act of surrender, allowing and to let go that is the most precious gift within itself.

I remember as a young dancer, having a little fright when I heard the word improv. After all the years of training with detail and precision foremost on my mind, I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around the idea of letting go in movement. To my eventual surprise I would find much joy and pleasure in trusting my body to move without the engagement of my mind. Being a very disciplined person it was interesting that I was able to trust the process and relinquish my control. The freedom to express and let impulse carry and move me, was pure delight.

As the months go by during my Covid convalescing, I continue to relapse in and out of health. It makes my heart hurt to think of all the people suffering in the world not only of Covid but of all illness and lack of health be it mental or physical. When people ask me how I’m doing, I feel my own shame and embarrassment that I have not bounced back. That I continue to struggle. I know what it takes to survive in this world and being ill does not seem to fit in. Yet so many suffer this way. Where do they go, how do they live? Like a wounded animal, I feel to hide and retreat. Partly because it’s what my body desperately needs to recover of course and the other part because it takes too much energy to explain the reality and perhaps be misunderstood. It’s reasonable that if one has not had any chronic illness or suffered in the physical sense, it is hard to understand. This isn’t a choice to be sick. It’s a continual surrender to what is. It’s excruciatingly painful on many levels. But what I feel my message to myself and others is, is to contemplate and have compassion for the less fortunate, the ill and the elderly. If I didn’t have my generous friends and family to support me, I’m not sure what I would’ve done through this time. And it breaks my heart to think of the people that suffer alone through challenging situations.

Nothing like the experience of losing everything to teach you the art of letting go. This journey with Covid has been one long lesson of letting go. First, letting go of my health, my business, money, talking to people, getting out into nature, how I ate, doing daily exercise etc. etc. etc.... Truly a letting go of my whole way of being.

Years ago, had I had an experience like I’m having now, a grand scale illness, aging parents stress, loss of income and my whole life being thrown up into the air all at once, I would’ve blamed myself. I adhered to the new age philosophy that made me believe that I must be vibrating at some extremely low rate, that I would incur such horrible disaster into my life. I’m so grateful that I moved out of looking at life from that paradigm. Living with this mentality kept me in a continual shaming loop. Life is too short to be continuously feeling bad about every little thing that you do if it doesn’t turn out the way that you want it to. What we want and what we need are two different things. Perhaps life knows best for us than we do for ourselves?...

As we all navigate these very intense and extraordinary times, it’s easy to feel stressed and alone in our own little worlds. But don’t underestimate the power and influence of the food we eat, our personal history, the history of our ancestors, our collective community consciousness and of course my favourite, the stars. LOL