Unconditional Love

The Ides of March came to find me in my, then, favorite s€x positive eco community where we were going to manifest our collective dream of living in harmony with nature and each other. 20 of us practicing free love, self responsibility, transparency, trust and taking care of the land and each other. You may think: “What a perfect quarantine!” Sadly, my experience was devastatingly painful. Once you introduce fear into the equation, all bets are off.
I found myself standing alone in the middle of familiar faces saying “Let’s play, love and trust! This is the perfect opportunity to practice what we preach”. Everyone looked at me like I’m out of my mind.
“We’re going to die. There’s no room for that. Only command and control till further notice” they said. And just like that, the culture of fear came back in full force, overnight. Complete with lying, gossip, hypocrisy, fragmentation, getting away with whatever one can get away with in secret as long as we keep the public pretences. I witnessed my goddess of love and trust getting slashed and burned every day at the altar of fear and mass hysteria.
“Let’s prove to the world that another reality is possible and demonstrate the healing powers of love”, I said. Only to be met with suspicious, angry, puzzled and at best, blank stares.
“You didn’t hear the news? We’re not supposed to trust, love or play. If we do, we’ll die”, came their response.
“We’ll die anyway. What’s new?” I asked. More anger, fear and projections hurled my way. I became the problem because I didn’t buy into their fears. I became the enemy, a threat to their illusion.
“Why don’t you submit, damn it!” I was told literally. “Play the fu*king game! Tell us what we want to hear, regardless of your truth” is what I heard. I couldn’t. If I didn’t live this nightmare first hand, I would’ve never believed it was possible. What happened to my friends? I puzzled. It was as if someone sucked their rational mind and replaced it with panic. The more I advocated love, the more I was hated. The more I voted for trust, the more I was mistrusted. We lived on a deserted island in the Pacific ocean with air pollution 0% yet acted like we were in the middle of New York. Even those who demonstrated traces of rationality in private, continued fear mongering in public. Mass hysteria is real. When I pointed out the hypocrisies and irrationality of it all, I was met with more anger and mistrust.
“You believe a false God who treats you as a number”, I claimed “it said I have to saw my bone off and put screws in my toe to be able to walk. Now I’m walking, dancing and jumping great without its knife. It said I have to take drugs for the rest of my life to live healthy but I reduced my stress and I’m very healthy without its drugs”.
“But people are dying!” they kept chiming in.
“Death is unavoidable” I said, “Do you want to die once or a million times over from fear?”. I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. My darkest moment came when I was voted out of the leadership team for advocating for trust, love and common sense. Not one of the other 6 members, whom I considered my tribe, even abstained. Something inside me died that day. Suddenly, the Nazi movement, the Balkan wars and all the regimes that turned one neighbor against the other, became very real. I experienced the turning point. Even though my nervous system got a much needed break, because every meeting felt like a losing battle, I still felt the pain of Julius Cesar as he uttered “Et tu, Brute!?”. The dream of a loving, open, evolved community crushed under the heavy weight of fear.
I ran to mother Nature. Let the waves drown my screams. Let the wind dry my tears. Hugged the trees and cried. Danced my bleeding heart away. Nature held my aching soul and soothed my pains.
I may never find my tribe, but I’ll never give up my belief in love and Nature. I know they can heal us if we just give them a chance, despite all the fear.

#fear #love #fearculture #loveculture #trust #nature #hawaii #pandemic