Pandemic is a word of a Greek etymology. It comes from “pan” which means “all” and “demos” which means “the people, as the body of citizens who collectively govern the state” and is related to “epidemia” and “pandimos” meaning the one that manifests with the consent and the active participation of all the people everywhere.
During our ongoing pandemia, which I experienced fully from my home, staying in, but in close weekly communication with friends and colleagues from around the world, I noticed how different countries took on a different approach, with their respective successes and failures.
I was disappointed to see that the medical researches of the world did not come together to co-create one solution for humanity. As a result, the present or pending varied solutions are offered under different legal medical patents and price tags. The issue appears to be common; the solution once more is approached individually.
This story of humanity has been told so many times over; the name is now changed to “pandemic” but the story has always been about existence and co-existence.
My only certainty in this situation is that life will go forward, not matter what kind of future is ahead of us; also that I am truly thankful to the blessings of the continuous lockdowns in my home country. I do not enjoy this situation regarding people’s health and work, I am not implying that; only that I was given the luxury of a different freedom with time, offered to me for the first time in my adult life.
And although there are days when the sitting in front of a computer is hard, and the hours get longer and longer and I have completely neglected my body’s need for movement, I am deeply joyful for being able to take part in live events around the world, with ease and comfort and genuinely have a regenerative experience via these newly launched digital ways. My study office is a small place in my house but every week for a year now the world is invited and sits in for a meaningful conversation on the things that always mattered to me. Ah, the simple pleasures of life!
I love discovering the wisdom of the Greek words, since it is a mother language, one of the few noetic ones. Every word has a root, it means something, it makes absolute sense and births new words with more complex and advanced meanings. There is a vibration that is coming forward and changes the ambiance of the room and how I feel, when I arrive down at the root that reveals the active philosophy that the word offers.
Rooting around the philosophy of the word “pandemic” I was attracted to another word that the Greeks have that I think describes our current situation brilliantly: the word “idiot”, that derives from the word “idiotis” and “idios”, which means a private person who does not take part in public affairs, a person that is “of one’s own”. In the understanding of the Ancient Greek Athenian nothing was more reckless and irresponsible than members of their society who were not actively participating in the governing of their state. A citizen who abstained from involvement in the public discussions and affairs, was therefore putting himself at a profound disadvantage. I think they are suggesting to us now that we can be as private as we like within our communities but we should not be an individual. Or we could be in serious disadvantage.
I have been very private in my lockdowns but not at all an individual, as I sit with other non-individuals around the world to see how can I be more educated in what is taking place and hopefully inspired constructively to see the exact areas and ways I am called to contribute.
At situations of prolonged occurrence, a mere cozy comfortable discussion in our free time is a poor allocation of our energy as humans. At the brink of collective fatigue we are asked to contribute as competent professionals to the human capacity for a better life. We are asked to investigate outside our normal scope of business and integrate new functional principles that amplify our common wellbeing and the biodiversity of the natural worlds of existence, while remaining sustainably profitable in our respective business.
I encounter this level of inspiration in divergent worlds. Mostly in the ancient wisdom of cultures and civilizations that prioritized their wellbeing by cultivating principles of a balanced body, mind and spirit connection, which until today is the only proven functional formula humanity has to stay alive and be healthy. They were also the ones that raised their people as active members of sustainable communities.
Apart from the Greek wisdom, I was unexpected introduced to the living lineage of the first nations of America. In their collective wisdom I discovered empirically the yeast reality of their culture and their sturdy embodiment of their unparalleled understanding of the principles of balanced co-existence and harmful living with the Earth and all new that is given birth on her. In their words, “culture is not a human construct; is the Mother Earth expressing herself as human being in any given place”. And regarding our future that “the intellect alone societies will not be able to succeed in their romance with life”.
Exploring their ways to harmonize with the natural principles, I was particularly affected by the notion of the Mohawk people about “now:wa”, a principle of living our “now”. In their words “non:wa” means “now of the present, now of the past, and now of the future”. Seduced by the exotic power and flow of this word, my days in involuntary seclusion transformed my “now” being with humans only on line to a natural way of existing without limiting my creativity or expressiveness of human emotions and thoughts. My pandemic “now” is as energetically driven as any, if not more motivated and inspired.
From the Diné (Navajo) people I was introduced to a different approach of the seven generations that affect us and live in our genes; their definition is that we are exactly in the middle, the connective tissue between the three generations behind us and the three in front of us. This new orientation exactly at the middle gave me an additional place of reference, no longer affected by the delusion of the justification of current tactics of mass restrictions of personal freedom for the general good, which inflamed the pain of global massive human loneliness.
In this multigenerational remembering of living, connected with the “now:wa” force of a continuation in life, I am naturally safeguarding with personal and professional ethos the space for all things alive. Inspired by these wise ones sayings that “we were born into beauty as beauty, as joyful life” I continue to be uninhibited in my romance with life. Within the infinite possibility of human birthing, death appears natural, possible but not definite. I can smile to the unknown because I follow the natural laws and not the ones enacted in the panic version of our human intelligence in fear of the structures that collapse indiscriminately one by one all over.
I investigate scientific evidence too. I resonate the strongest with the research of leading medical doctors regarding the Earth’s biome: her bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses. These medical professionals have developed a truly holistic and integrated approach of their practice with the Earth’s health and continuous changes. They invite us to return to common sense; nature is intelligent. Evidently, she is still so more than our most advanced science. They can now prove how inter-relatable Earth’s biome in soil, water and air is to our health and how the decline in human health reflects the decline of planetary health and biology.
Proposing new biologic models, they use the long-lasting research and the application of new methods of soil cultivation to prove that the Earth’s microbiome, because of its innate extraordinary capacity for genetic diversification through the mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer, exosomes, and viruses, will actually save our species, the humans, from our ongoing genetic degeneration. There is a multilayered, multifaceted and multidimensional level of existence in our communities; from humans all the way to biome. The biome, including the viruses, is actually now the prevalent driving accelerator for a new consciousness for our health and, in general, our Earth Consciousness for the future.
This week as the weeks before I am constantly working, thinking, participating, contributing to our “pandemia” from my home. But my “pandemia” is not illness or desperation or meaningless destructive thinking. I am part of the pandemic of the new emerging creative functional professionals with the awareness of the generations that came and the generations to come that recognize the changes of the Earth as the changes of a living organism that thrives in health using every single natural mechanism including her microbiome, to a protect and nurture a life that is not idiotic in nature.
We are here to generate, support and scale the new pandemia of love, higher integrated intelligence and sustainable practices as excellent professionals in our respective fields, following the natural laws of existence and co-existence. We are not idiots; we are not individuals. We are becoming better pandemic sustainable professionals, little by little but every single day.
The word pandemic in its higher integrated wisdom invites us to look deeper to what we want to allow to be alive, to manifest and thrive as the result of our collective active participation in our communities.
I reckon “now:wa” is a really good time to think and choose a higher vibration of this possibility. This is the new emerging pandemic.
* for the principle of Now:wa of the Mohawk people look for at the work of Dawn Avery https://www.dawnavery.com
** for the principles of the Diné (Navajo) people look for the work of Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining)
*** for a holistic approach on Earht’s biome and the new biological models look at the work of Zach Bush, MD https://zachbushmd.com