Easter Saturday: suspended & heightened. The liminal space we find ourselves in during this pandemic.

Easter Saturday. A day of waiting, of unknown. liminal, empty, uncertain. A day of dark, of facing death and loss. A day of grief, of resistance and perhaps gradual acceptance. A day of feeling all the losses, all the pain and sorrows, a day of not turning the other way, but simply and profoundly: being with. As hard and uncomfortable as that may be.

What is happening on this day is not visible to the eye. It is stirring beneath the surface, perhaps imperceptible to the point of nothing. But there is something happening, for even simply bearing the unknown is something. To not turn away even when we don’t know how to move forward is transformative.

To breath through whatever feelings may be coursing through our bodies, while not gasping for distraction or any kind of numbing, is piercing and is alot. We come out the other side changed and ready for Easter, for resurrection, for new life. But in order to truly come out the other side, it seems that Easter Saturday, this liminal, achy, lost, nothing-ness but alot-ness needs to happen and is part of the recipe for awakening, for spring.

As a teen I began contemplating how Easter Saturday might have felt to the friends of Jesus. They who truly didn’t know about Sunday being round the corner. Who were only feeling the loss and confusion. They who didn’t have the benefit of the future, of knowing that resurrection – as promised as it might have been – actually would come to pass. How would that day of emptiness, of coming to terms with the death of their most beloved friend and teacher have felt? Devastating we can imagine, as we all have had such moments, days, weeks and years, when that which was most dear to us, most important, was gone to our perceptions and knowledge. Gone. With no guarantee of return.

Today and these past weeks, as our whole human family faces and deals with the covid-19 pandemic, I feel we are in a long, drawn-out Easter Saturday. A time when life is suspended and heightened. When the Unknown looms larger than ever. Grief is at our finger tips and takes over in waves. Fear crawls just under the surface and explodes here and there. Hope sparks and swells, hope for a saner tomorrow. We are waiting, while our former lives are upended, up rooted in suspension.

An image that has come to me during these weeks is of autumn leaves tossed up in the air. The leaves are up there, swirling, suspended. They have not landed yet. What the collective result of this pandemic and our collective response to it will be, is not yet known. All is tossed in the air.

As my husband (and main companion in sense making around this unprecedented and historical moment) has pointed out: as we seek to understand what is really going on in the multi-layered, suspended and heightened moment we are now living, there are so many dimensions, agendas and forces at work, it can be near impossible to get a complete picture. What we can do, however, is to look back to say November of last year, and notice all the vectors already at play then. For what we do know of this moment, is that all is heightened, and each of these vectors, these agendas, is now on steroids.

All are seizing this moment is one way or another.

Those whose call it was to become a spiritual teacher or supportive coach, now have a window in which to step up with wisdom to share.

Those interested in confusing the population and disseminating false news, or simply shocking with the latest dramatic news, what a moment.

Those who have long felt our earth needs a pause, here finally a chance to reconsider our trajectory.

Those who are amongst the most decent of humans, ready to simply serve, are showing up with such fervour and courage, we can only bow in appreciation and cheer with the fullest of hearts.

Those whose deepest need was to stop, to pause, and rest, are finding an invitation to do so now.

Those who are keen on mandatory vaccination, are seeing this as their moment.

Those who have been working tirelessly for greater income equality, now their efforts are finding an opening.

Those who have been scheming for more authoritarian regime, this is their moment too.

Those who always knew that gardening was a quiet revolution, now is their time.

Those who see individual freedoms as nuisance, now have a moment to squash these.

Those who have longed for greater collaboration, it is happening.

Those who have always carried care for the whole at the centre of their beings, this too is their moment to act in a heightened way, even if just by staying home, but also in tireless research for treatment of this virus, in care for the sick, in providing essential services, in leading with integrity.

There are many many forces at work, all of their agendas, all of their vectors experiencing and making use of this heightened moment in the course of our human unfolding.

These forces — both those aiming for greater good, beauty and truth, as well as those aiming for the opposites — are on steroids at present. Heightened. Intensified.

And what the outcome will be when we consider all these vectors, all these individual and collective wills and actions, decisions and values — all these leaves thrown up in the air — is not yet decided. We don’t know what the outcome will be. We feel the intensity. We are feeling all the days of the Easter Journey — death, the in-between, and the resurrection — all at play simultaneously.

And perhaps most of all: we are feeling and experiencing the “in between” — the Easter Saturday part of the journey. We don’t know if Easter Sunday will happen. We don’t have the benefit of knowing the future and being reassured by it. We don’t have assurance. It could go either way. Collapse and constriction, or renewal into healing and care for the Whole. Or a mix of all of it.

Held in liminal space, with vectors flying in all directions, this is our moment to encourage the breeze to move those leaves in the direction of greatest goodness, truth and beauty.

This is our moment to encourage trajectories of kindness, forgiveness, sustainability, coherence building, sovereignty and dignity. This is our moment to nurture every strand of connection, insight and care.

This is the undecided, elongated moment wherein the tides could turn, as a whole, one way or the other.

And so, my dear beauty makers, goodness tenders and truth tellers, let us do our best to help the breezes blow in the direction of sanity for this humanity, this planet, and all that lives within and upon it. May resurrection happen. May we find our way to what we have been dreaming, hoping, praying and working for.

The ways to do this are as myriad as we are. For some it may be tending to their children with presence. For others it may be fervent dedicated prayer. For some, gardening. For others, thinking out of the box and helping create meta-systemic change. The paths are many. The potential of resurrection, of a next stage in our humanity to actually feel like Easter Sunday, like the most wondrous spring morning, is with us. May we show up for it.

With all my love,
m