Coronavirus - A Symptom of our Evolutionary Development?

“Man’s general way of thinking of the totality, i.e. his general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself.”~ David Bohm

Now, more than ever, it’s important to think clearly and calmly.

The COVID-19 recently declared pandemic has been emotionally challenging for many. It has changed day-to-day life in unprecedented ways and will continue to have impacts on our interdependent worlds for a long time to come. These are some of the disruptions and changes we’ve seen:

• Several nations have closed schools and universities in a bid to stop the spread of the virus;
• China experienced widespread quarantines enforced by drones, Italy entered an unprecedented countrywide lockdown, with Denmark and other European nations soon to follow;
• Working from home has been encouraged by all the major tech companies and many government agencies;
• There has been widespread cancellation of public events globally;
• There are even claims that the outbreak is creating chaos within science itself;
• There have been factory shutdowns with disruptions across the supply chain;
• Stock markets globally are plummeting, with trading intermittently suspended on some;
• The Baltic Dry Index (which measures freight rates for grains and other dry goods around the world) is at its second lowest point in 10 years.

“This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector — so every sector and every individual must be involved in the fight.” ~Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization

Clearly business-as-usual is under threat, and some may say that coronavirus could be a blessing in disguise for the serious societal transformations many have been advocating for.

How can disruptions to business-as-usual be viewed as progress?

A useful comparison is the metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly.

“A caterpillar can eat up to three hundred times its own weight in a day, devastating many plants in the process, continuing to eat until… the crisis of overeating, fatigue and breakdown allows them to develop, gradually replacing the caterpillar with a butterfly.” ~ Elisabet Sahtouris

What the human species is experiencing now is the crisis of over-consumption and over-extraction, resulting in fatigue and breakdown. Despite the pandemic, there is always a chance for breakthrough — if we allow for it.

What can we learn from this viral situation?

If we consider COVID-19 in isolation from larger patterns that have been building up towards this situation, we may miss the opportunity for a deeper systemic reflection. These are some of our reflections.

On 22 December 2019 we hosted — as part of our EARTHwise Tipping Point System — an online webinar that we called The Golden Decade Celebration: the Point of No Return. We initiated this webinar with the foresight that 2020 would see the accumulation of major events and tipping points. We foresaw that these events would shake our worlds to their core.

What we anticipated is now unfolding, and it won’t stop with COVID-19. This virus is part of a much deeper collective immune crisis, since we have refused to listen to the deeper messages our planet has been alerting us to with increasing urgency. We have observed patterns, which call for a pause for how we move forward or inward.

COVID-19 affects the lungs. The lungs of our planet were deeply impacted (and still are) by the Amazon fires and the huge fires in Australia at the turn of the decade. In Chinese medicine, the lung organ also represents the emotion of grief. We have barely grieved the loss of life in these vital areas of our planet.

If we consider the emergence of a virus as a deeper systemic immune response, we can start to consider how our planetary lungs and our human lungs connect. Instead of focusing on shut-down and fear of infection, what might happen if we were to focus on strengthening our immune system by supporting the health of our planetary bodies and collective lungs? Naturally this approach will require a very different kind of leadership than that demonstrated by national and world health authorities.

Transition leadership pays attention to these patterns and initiates a transformational change process that focusses on health, healing, and immunity. This also includes making space for grief and emotional consciousness.

What might a more sensitive response to coronavirus be?

Let’s start by listening more deeply to what our bodies and our planet might be telling us by reflecting on the following questions:

• What we can learn from this virus beyond the practical commonsense health precautions?
• How can we develop our transition leadership competencies as a collective immune response for times of urgency and crisis?
• How can we develop compassionate wisdom responses in the face of danger and fear?
• How can we develop a place of inner calm and clarity while going through such turbulent times, as part of strengthening our immune systems?

These are the questions we’ll be exploring in greater depth in an upcoming webinar on Monday, March 16th at 10am PST. The webinar is facilitated by Dr Anneloes Smitsman and includes three Conscious Leadership Practices for times of transition and crisis.

Very few of our leaders recognise that we’re in a time of transition and that a time of transition can lead to either breakdown or transformational breakthrough. If you recognize the coronavirus as representing the opportunity for evolutionary progress, you may well be hearing the call to become a transition leader. In that case you’ll find this webinar inspiring and insightful. You can find out more and register here:

Written by Dr Anneloes Smitsman and Michael Haupt.