Did you know that our world is actually experiencing grief right now? I heard a podcast with Gregg Braden, and when he offered this way of looking at what we are experiencing globally as COVID 19, it made total sense.

For any of us who do not know what I am referring to, the five stages of grief according to Kubler-Ross are experienced when we are facing death or the loss of a loved one. They are Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression/Grief. Acceptance. Can any of us identify with this in regards to our experience over the last month? Yes, for most of us it has only been a month since we first became aware that we had a virus that was out of the ordinary.

So, where do you stand on this idea of grief? Do you agree or disagree? When it was first presented to me by Gregg Braden, I thought about how a way of life is completely lost right now. We can’t do our usual things like dining out, hugging each other, partying, going to events, and  for our Spiritual Center – CSL Kaua`i, most crucially, not being able to hold our Sunday Celebrations in person. Yes, I will admit that I am grieving a loss of social contact and life as I knew it.

However, just like when we lose someone close to us, as we go through grief and the feeling that life will never be the same again, as we feel like maybe we cannot go on, finally, usually at some point, we experience an acceptance and a willingness to find something new in life.

I feel like I am moving back and forth in the grief process. Yesterday, I found out that our trip of a lifetime to Peru was definitely canceled. It is rescheduled for next year – a whole year away. This one message from the tour company broke some of my denial of what is really happening in the conditional world. Yes, I will never be the same again.

However, as I have written before, for me, the answer lies in admitting my feelings of sadness, of grief, but then moving through them. As I leave the old world behind, because of m resilient spirit, I know something better must be coming and might very well be here now. The enormity of thinking about never having social contact again is not what I am projecting, but what if, right now in this moment, what is was enough. What if I didn’t deny it, bargain for something else, get depressed about it, get angry at some outside force, culture, or person, but instead just took a sigh and accepted what is? I believe in the acceptance a whole new world would open up.

Out of the Dark Ages, came the Renaissance. On History.com, I read: “The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages (Dark Ages). … The Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art. Some of the greatest thinkers, authors, statesmen, scientists and artists in human history thrived during this era, while global exploration opened up new lands and cultures to European commerce. The Renaissance is credited with bridging the gap between the Middle Ages and modern-day civilization.”

We’ve most definitely been in the Dark Ages for a long period now. I choose to look at this Coronavirus as the push we need to move out of the Dark Ages and into a new Renaissance. Our world, that was heading toward its sixth mass extinction, has the capacity to be born anew.

All I have to do is go on YouTube and Facebook to see the new artists and creativity that is expressing itself.  Our nature as Divine Beings is to create. We’ve perhaps had our creative hands tied over a long period of time, as we’ve been expressing as a doing, doing, doing species, just trying to get ahead, lost in the world of commercialism and materialism. Being forced into our mental closets, has brought something new out in us, some more than others. Yes, I believe a Renaissance is here. Science is being forced to think anew. The new Science, Quantum Science, is taking a more viewable platform.

If we truly stop denying where we are right now and instead get into the birth canal and bring some new vision for the future with us, we will be part of this Renaissance. What is the alternative? It is very bleak. I do not think we can afford a return to business as usual which we have already proven does not work. The old ways are crumbling. I’m not sure we can or want to put Humpty back together again.

I invite us all to examine the five stages of grief, admit where we are at, have compassion for ourselves and allow ourselves to move through them at our own Divine pace. We are fully guarded, guided and directed by the Divine within each of us.We are not alone. There are people all over the world, they are “cultural creatives” who feel this same way. We are powerful creators and we shouldn’t ignore ourselves anymore. I know this and I allow this to be my Reality, as I take my place in the new Renaissance.

In Love and Truth,

Rev. Rita