Yukoners have an inherent sense of interconnection, I think. Who of us hasn’t met someone Outside who says they have family or friends in the Territory, and not automatically asked, “Oh, who’s that?”

Our global coronavirus is teaching us about that interconnectedness so intensely, painfully, poignantly. We are so interconnected that we have to keep apart. At just this time of heightened anxiety and fear, we can’t even gather to support one another. We have been paired down to our individuality, our smallest family units, at the same time as we have grasped our connectivity like never before. Thank goodness for all the tools that now allow us to be somewhat connected, through it all. In one fell swoop, this crisis has taught us what really matters - and it’s not things or trips or even great experiences. It is each other. It is us.

I see so much good coming out of that caring connectedness, and I also fear the estranging side. That we are becoming more and more afraid of “the other”, whether that is a different country or just another person.

Today I want to share two stories of my own experiences of interconnectedness. Two times in my life that I vividly experienced connection with “the other”. One human, one animal. I need to remind myself of the beauty of our web, in this surreal, disconnected time. I need to know that this planet that holds all of us contains a structure of connection and support, in its very being, that we are but a very small part of.

My first experience was right at the end of my training as an Acupuncturist and Chinese Herbalist. I was doing a treatment in Bamfield, BC - a small fishing village on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and my heart’s home. I was treating a young man who had a fear of needles, and because of that I stayed by his side the entire time he was resting with the needles in. He was lying on his front, with his face turned away from me towards a wall. I guess I was feeling experimental that day, because I tried something I had never thought to do before. I decided to look at certain needles along his back and legs and see what would happen. The instant I thought this, the instant I looked, he felt that needle. Wow!! What an amazing coincidence, I thought! Until it happened again, and again. For the next 30 minutes, this young scientist with no preconceived notions at all about this, his first acupuncture experience, told me with almost 100% accuracy every needle I looked at, instantly.

My second experience was on the Island of Hawaii, at a place called Kua Bay. I was there on my own that day, following a multi-day Qi Gong retreat taught by American master of Qi Gong Ken Cohen. We were taught “animal forms”. Energetic movements that were said to channel the energy of the different animals. Snake. Crane. Deer. Whale.

When I got down to the sandy beach I heard chatter that there were whales in the water, so I put on my snorkel and mask, thinking how amazing it would be to hear them under water. But the waves were too choppy and I emerged, pummelled, within minutes. Instead, I decided to head to a secluded cove of volcanic lava flow just down the beach. I found a nice flat rock to do my practice on, and settled in.

Given the situation, I decided to do the whale form. I centred myself, and then I began to move. The instant my arm rose, in the pose representing a whale’s fin emerging from the water, a whale emerged from the water just off the rocky shore’s edge directly in front of me. Wow!! What an amazing coincidence!!! I thought. Until it happened again, and again, and again, and included her little baby humpback too. For the next forty five minutes, I did Qi Gong with whales, with almost 100% “accuracy” for every move I did, instantly. At the very end the synchrony started to slow down a bit, until I thought to myself “Well, I guess they’re done, they’re gone” and right then, way out at the line of the horizon, a whale breeched, leaping full out of the water and crashing down again. The finale.

We are all part of this web of life on our beautiful planet together. May we feel the beauty of this, not only the fear. And may the fear work on our hearts in ways that last, beseeching us to take better care. Of ourselves, of each other, of the animals, of our Earth.

The Thread That Connects

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