Mark Nepo's Weekly Reflection: Germs

Germs

Germs are microscopic cells that breakdown the structure of the life they enter. In the biology we inhabit, germs are the cause of disease. The spiritual equivalent, however, reaches us as unseeable agents of revelation that break down our structures so we can restore our direct sense of living. These spiritual germs cause us to feel and think in new ways. More simply put, these enzymes of pure life-force cause us to have the rug pulled out from under us. It’s how Saul was knocked off his horse, only to dust himself off as Saint Paul. It’s how Pissarro one day stopped painting realistically and devoted himself to the painting of light. It’s how we spend years building a dream that hardens into a cage until one day, for some unknown reason, we feel confined more than lifted, and have to break the dream in order to go on. No one likes this or seeks it out. But like gravity, it grips us nonetheless. So, as the germs of the coronavirus wreak havoc with our biology, what unseeable agents of revelation are being released, even as we speak, to break down the many structures we have built between us and life?

A Question to Walk With: Describe an experience in which something stubborn in you was broken down. How did this change you? What became possible for you once your stubbornness was broken?

This excerpt is from my book in progress, The Long Walk Through Time.