The Rascal's Immunity
Dissolving a clot between ourselves and the world. As I crash—heading to the floor with no idea I'm about to become fast friends with it for years—I’m aware of our disconnect and opportunity.
Act 1, scene 1 of the rascal, the mongrel and the mutant.^ Immunity
This Act rewinds an interconnected story, global to personal crises, back to a start:
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
The dateline is March 2021 and I have just had my first Covid vaccine shot. I felt relived. And surprised about feeling relieved.
I took the opportunity to shop—living in a remote area pre-made pizza is a serious luxury! I remember being up, super positive and encouraged.
It was an hour and a half mountainous drive back home. Entering the house I stumble. That’s remarkable—I am used to having exceptionally good balance as a skier and climber. Being unsteady with shopping in my hands is weird.
It got stranger
By the next day I am short of breath and definitely noticing my well out of kilter balance—as I’m walking back down a hill I am worrying about faceplanting! By the evening I am fatigued, feeling chilled to feverish, in rotating cycles, sore stomach and head with an almost continuous adrenalin-endorphin like rush coursing through my skin.
I google the covid vaccine side effects. Confident in the veracity of our public health experts I’d not bothered to read, nor keep, the leaflet they gave me.
In many ways the vaccine side-effects are a straightforward list. They are clearer than worldwide side-effects—activities such as fossil fuel consumption are driving planetary biodiversity loss, colonialism is underlying an intergenerational, wildly inequitable wealth distribution. These are our meta-crises.
The analogy to my vaccination, and what I was then thinking of as side-effects, is apt. We did not set out to create these crises—covid, global inequity, climate crises and more. Mostly we were then, and are now, seeking solutions.
Crises feed each other
The loss of biodiversity, for example, has quite a direct link with the likelihood of future covid like pandemics—see Pivotal moment. Similarly, our burning of fossil fuel is obviously warming the planet and creating feedback, more severe and dangerous weather patterns, floods, fires alongside much more that. More significant worldwide calamities and extinctions are on the way.
Cross-meta-crises links might be less obvious, e.g. between our current pandemic and colonialism plus wealth disparity. Yet, this is very present. For example, people in richer countries eat more meat, we produce significant quantities of this in factory farms where animals are fed grain rather than grazing on grass. That grain is grown on arable land which in turn pushes less profitable farming into more and more marginal land, to de-forest land and degrade river systems. Links from that include: more meat, less forest, less greenhouse gas absorption, a warmer planet.
There are many other connections yet, in simple terms, the world has a fever. When we have a fever it is usually our body fighting an infection. A virus is multiplying inside us and our body is fighting to regain health. However, if the fever is too extreme, it can damage our brains and it can kill us.
Day 5
After the vaccine I definitely felt feverish.
Cycling through fever feelings, for 20 minutes, and then onto the same periods of chills and dizziness, I headed to the floor. I was thinking: ok, this is quite intense and definitely more than 48 hours. I’ll just sit here while it passes.
It became stronger.
I lay on the floor and flipped off somewhere else—a vivid experience. At the time I likened it to a dream state where I am in some wonderful and deep conversations with a group of others. Except, of course, I am physically alone in my room. Coming back I stay put. A little more time on the floor I think. This will pass.
A short time later I look at my watch. It is 5 pm. I have been there for nearly seven hours! And, I am still thinking this will pass within days. I am certainly not thinking it will take weeks or months (nor the years it is now).
Time-folding
There is a time slip too with our planet. For example, the greenhouse gases we emit today will impact for decades and centuries to come. This is from you-I-all of us through direct and indirect impacts such as from the foods we eat and clothing we buy and wear.
If, magically, we stop all such human driven extra carbon dioxide (and other gases) going into the atmosphere what’s already emitted will continue to warm the planet. That is, our planet’s fever is not simply cured. Just as heading to the floor was not a simple relief for my fever.
Restoration and justice
Similarly, colonisation and its impacts endure. This did not end as the sun set on Britain’s empire. Nor did it end with the American Civil War and slavery being banned. Our minds and thinking patterns, our ways of being—prejudices as well as intra-people-culture care, compassion and connection—are deeply ingrained from such experiences. Much of these impacts did not start with us. Our forbears lives—and the pain, struggle and beauty from those times—remain influential today.1
As I was writing the first version of this article ex-policeman, Derek Chauvin, is found guilty for murdering George Floyd. While this is welcome and overdue it is not a simple fix. Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison made the point:
I would not call today’s verdict “justice”, however, because justice implies true restoration. But it is accountability, which is the first step towards justice.
That and other crisis peaks take us, move us along a little bit. Yet, just as my 7 hours lying on the floor was not a fix, these critical moments fall short too—e.g. Chauvin’s 252 month sentence is not going to right underlying causes including those connected with colonialism. But it helps:
Ooh, would you lie down?
Tell me which birds are in the sky
Or which flowers lie by the side of the road
Next week
Act 1, Scene 2: The rascal’s visions beyond crisis. …. Day 7 and, despite ongoing symptoms now so far out of the norm I should really be questioning them hard, I’m cycling two hours to the beach. Just how long can I (or we for that matter) keep going as we were and expecting good things to come?
Notes
^ I am deeply indebted to my dear, dear friend Teresa Zimmermann including inspiration for title, to write, comments, to integrate the songs … and so much more.
^ Picture: Festina Lentívaldi, (be) Benevolution. Reuse: Creative Commons BY-NC 3.0 US.
E.g. see Mark Woylan, It didn't start with you: How inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle. Amazon or public library