The following is a message from one of Bryan’s podcast guests, Arkan Lushwala, a Peruvian spiritual teacher and ceremonial leader. Published here with permission. 

We don’t know why the Earth took until now to find a way to protect herself from the damage caused by human activity. In a deep, primordial part of ourselves, many of us have been waiting for something like this to happen. Someone powerful and sacred had to intervene in order to stop the destruction of the sources of life. The Earth herself. Viruses are made by the Earth.

And now as humanity we are forced to make the sacrifice we couldn’t make from our own will. Unfortunately, and painfully, now the sacrifice goes beyond letting go of our comfort and the habits that lead to an excessive consumption of goods – not only the basic ones but also the ones that we consume in excess for mere pleasure. Unfortunately, now there is also a sacrifice of human lives.

With deep compassion for those who are suffering the loss of a loved one, or experiencing fear while laying on a hospital bed, and for all those who are having extremely difficult life conditions due to the current crisis, I have to say that the Earth is still being kind and gentle, that her way of defending herself could be much worse. That’s how moms are with their kids. Our Mother Earth must be suffering more than anyone while she is scolding us for not having changed when we could have, when there was still time for us to do it on our own.

Is there still time to change, with the Earth’s help? Seeing the Earth do the work that we didn’t do, I say “yes”. This crisis is bringing a relief to nature. Where we are in Cusco right now, everything got quiet due to the mandatory quarantine, so Pachamama is not getting hit every single day as much as she did until four days ago, for a very long time, since the ramifications of the industrial revolution reached our sacred lands. Today it’s really quiet out here, like it was in the time of the Inkas. The air smells really good, and you can feel the presence of the mountains, the river and the singing birds much stronger than the noise of the frenetic ways that we have for making a living in the modern world.

My feeling is that Pachamama wouldn’t be doing what she is doing right now unless there is time to change. The capacity that nature has to regenerate is extraordinary, extremely powerful, and in some cases surprisingly fast. But we have to listen. The Earth is telling us that the moment is now. She waited to act until now, so the time for the big change is now. While we are quiet at home, as children of the Earth, each one of us has the opportunity to listen to the big body we belong to, and decide how to participate in the change, how to adapt to it, what sacrifices to make for good, how to be happy with less material comfort and more community, more solidarity, and a much stronger connection to the sacredness of nature. She is our biggest ally, and the one we have been stepping on carelessly, without gentleness and respect, sometimes without even seeing her, our dear Mother, the only one that can give us everything we need.

Today, I want to connect my heart to the heart of the Earth and be one with her, to understand with deep compassion what she is doing in order to keep life alive, instead of falling into the illusion that an enemy is trying to destroy me.

Today I am going to remember those who are having a hard time breathing under all this cement: viruses, bacteria, worms, roots, insects and tiny pieces of living soil, and I will let them know that I am here, quiet, listening and feeling.

Arkan Lushwala
Cusco, Peru
March 19, 2020

To read more from Arkan Lushwala, check out his published works The Time of the Black Jaguar and Deer and Thunder.