Sacred Illness & the Hero’s Journey
For the past month of living in quarantine, I have observed in myself, as well as the collective, both positive and negative effects of COVID-19. As a polarity therapist, I cannot help but view this whole event through the lens of what in Polarity we call Sacred Illness.
Polarity Therapy is a holistic healing modality that works with life energy to balance the mind, body and spirit. But it is also a philosophy based on the concept that we have an electromagnetic field with a positive, negative, and neutral pole just like the earth, and the atoms that all things are made of. We are microcosms of the macro, and everything is interconnected.
From the Polarity perspective, there are no accidents in life, and even our illnesses are sacred. All of life’s events have a positive, negative, and neutral pole as well. In this way, things are not so either/or, rather, they exist on a continuum. Even the most painful challenging situations can remain just that; terrible, painful, and challenging while simultaneously offering growth and healing that would otherwise be impossible to acquire. This is not unlike what Joseph Campbell called the hero’s journey. On the hero’s journey, we must face our obstacles in order to learn, heal, and harvest the courage we need to persevere. Through our trials, we obtain wisdom, forge relationships, make new allies, and dig deep within ourselves to grow.
I have thought a great deal throughout this pandemic, about the positive and negative poles of this Sacred Illness that we are collectively going through. Personally, the negative pole of my experience has been stress, fear, and frustration over losing my income. And yet, my struggles have felt incidental compared to what others are going through. I have felt deep compassion for so many people losing loved ones, losing livelihoods, losing everything.
The positive pole of this ‘time out of time’ for me has been astoundingly more potent than the negative, however. Having the opportunity to stay home and tend to creative projects that have been calling me for so long has been deliciously transformative. But the most significant gift has been the time I have spent with my two teenagers singing, playing, and deeply connecting just before my daughter goes off to college next year. Sacred.
As for the positive pole on the collective level, our hunkering down has been a catalyst for so many layers of healing to occur in the natural world in particular. This time has provided an unprecedented, and dare I say glorious rewilding. Pandas in Hong Kong are mating for the first time in a decade while flamingos have flocked to Mumbai. Bears are roaming free in Yosemite, turtles hatching in Brazil, goats, elephants, and who knows what else are roaming the streets. Due to a decrease in car and air travel, there has been a dop in carbon emissions of up to 40% in some places. Mountain ranges are becoming visible in India for the first time in 30 years. While thousands of humans have suffered from a virus that is known to attack the lungs, in particular, it is an interesting juxtaposition that the lungs of the earth have been healing.
There is no doubt that the sacrifice has been great. Economically, emotionally, physically, there is monumental suffering that we have been called to hold space for collectively. While many have suffered from the virus directly, so many more have been impacted indirectly in service of the safety and well-being of our vulnerable populations. This has offered us all an opportunity to act with compassion by staying home and being careful. We’ve hopefully become more mindful of how and where we spend our money, and to appreciate the institutions such as our school systems and hospitals, that we have more or less taken for granted in the past. So many acts of kindness and generosity have occurred alongside the tragedies, deaths, and losses.
It is impossible to weigh the positives and negatives against one another. They are striking, devastating, breathtaking, and no one thing takes away from the other. According to the philosophy of Polarity, there is room for all of it. The suffering and the bliss all must coexist. That is the nature of Sacred Illness. As we traverse the highs and lows, we must accept, reject, celebrate and grieve. This is the gift of the hero’s journey, and we are all on it together.
Writer: Amanda Lux
Amanda Lux, BCPP, LMT is an energy artist, writer, teacher, and creator of the Elevation Hive School of Energy Medicine, a community (Hive) for empaths, healers, and anyone on their healing journey. Learn more at ElevationHive.com