An open Letter to All Practitioners II

Easter 2020

Dear all practitioners

 

The corona-crisis is still here and appears to be growing globally.

There is a lot of unease and concern with regard to the disease, fatalities, and the economic and social consequences. Much suffering. Much understandable anxiety.

A number of people have asked if it is possible to point towards a potentially larger, spiritual perspective on the crisis. And whether that might be helpful and lighten the work with the heavier and more serious aspects of the situation. Grief. Pain. Fear of catastrophe.

Perhaps one could, tentatively, think about a single theme in the larger context: for the past couple of thousand years, humanity’s development has been characterized by what could be called a focused, action-oriented masculine principle: kings, wars, and patriarchy. Conquest of land and nature. Ideas about mastering, exploiting and controlling nature and our planet’s natural resources. Capitalism. Materialism. Industrialism.

These enterprises have brought great progress, great wealth, great technological benefits to humanity – or rather, to parts of humanity. But it must also be said that we have gone to extremes: we invent, produce, consume, travel, drive, fly, and move incessantly around the world and around the internet. The faster the better. And we consume fossil fuels at an unprecedented pace.

Right now, the corona-crisis appears to have brought about and perhaps necessitated a global abatement and slowdown of travels, movement, industry. A kind of involuntary pause. From doing to being. From the masculine principle towards the feminine principle. A slower, more natural pace. Solidarity, care, closeness, a sense of and respect for all that grows and thrives.

For a long time, climate and energy crises have pointed towards the feminine: compassion with everything that lives. Expressed as insight into and formulations about what people and the planet need: organic food production, sustainability, locality, sharing global responsibility, showing consideration. Spiritually, the appreciation and need for exploring feminine paths is growing instead of the old, male-dominated methods and principles.

Whereas the climate crisis has not really managed to put the brake on over-production and over-consumption, it seems the corona virus from bats and other wild animals has succeeded in stopping, for some time, the world’s course towards the abyss of self-destruction.

 

Perhaps one possible insight from this serious crisis could be to begin to listen in a more feminine way to what is natural.

To respect and take care of the outer environment, the planet, its resources, and its wonderful and fragile biosphere.

To listening to the compassionate connection with our fellow human beings.

To orient yourself in the direction of your inner nature, to listen to and feel the body.

To remember your breathing and from where oxygen originates: from plants, trees, plankton and flowers.

To sense the heart: gratitude, care, gentleness, compassion and love.

To listen meditatively into wakefulness, with curiosity, quietly.

To discover the hidden, innermost nature in the human heart and in every living thing. Relaxed non-doing. From doing to natural being.

To sense the balance between the masculine principle and the feminine principle in yourself: to rest, relaxed and naturally, in the source of that sensing.

 

 

    A brotherhood of man ...
    living life in peace ...

    You may say that I’m a dreamer,
    but I’m not the only one.

     – John Lennon, Imagine

 

 

With love,

From midway through a three-month retreat,

Jes Bertelsen

 

Letter as pdf