I keep finding myself pondering that what we’re now calling lockdown would once have been normal life. My life is completed centred around my own home, most days leaving its sphere only once and within walking distance for an hour or so, travelling as infrequently as possible to stock up on essential supplies that are not available from my immediate environment.

Internet and other mod cons aside, I’d almost think I’d stepped into one of the Thomas Hardy novels I so loved as a teenager. And there’s something in that……echoes of the past and times when we lived more in harmony with the earth.

Although I can work online and am still taking calls from clients for healing and guidance, these are not surprisingly less frequent than usual. Rather than wanting to fill my time or dream up new courses and services, my intuitive pull has been to focus on the simple and necessary tasks to hand. The weather has been unusually beautiful so I’ve been out in the garden, tidying and planting, hanging washing outside to dry (a surprisingly rare pleasure in my beloved Wales), trying out new and healthy vegan recipes to feed the immune system, meditating in the open air.

I’m fortunate to live in a rural and fairly remote location so there are incredible walks from my front door during which we very rarely meet anyone else. I’m really savouring these small excursions into the wider world around me, taking the time to notice every small change in the living landscape day by day as the woodland burgeons fully into Spring. The land is whispering its secrets to me, positioning me within its context, and I’m giving Her my full attention.

What I’m sensing is a freedom to surrender into my physical body, a dropping down from my head into my belly, a natural and noticeable softening in my neck and shoulders. My whole system seems to be slowing down and recalibrating to new frequencies and energetics, and I’m not resisting it. There are days when waves of emotion pass over me; as an empath the collective fear and grief out there feels strong, and I never repress it. I simply sit, feet planted firmly on the ground and acknowledge it, giving it permission to move through me. When I’ve emptied out, what I’m filled with is an overwhelming love, joy and even, dare I say it, excitement about what all this chaos is engendering. I offer those frequencies to the planet, knowing there are many out there who are struggling with such hardship, illness, isolation and loss that they feel a million miles removed from them.

For me personally, this feels like a sacred pause, an energetic reset during which there is nothing for me to do other than to be with what is. Fully be with what is. So I’m aware of every tiny shift of thought and feeling, checking in with myself before I do anything to make sure it’s what feels right in that moment. In some way, it feels like I’m holding this space of mindful peace and centred calm for those who can’t; that by creating and maintaining this oasis of “being-ness” I make it available to others.

For the coming weeks and months, be true to where you’re at in each moment in the understanding that others, for a myriad of reasons, may be in a very different space. Do what you feel called to do, knowing that not everyone will want to, can, nor should respond similarly. I think it’s all we can ask of each other right now. We’re not all the same, but we are all connected. Together, with each of us doing the best we can for ourselves and each other in difficult circumstances, we’re adopting a new and better template for humanity. I have no idea what it will look like, and I believe there’s some hard work ahead to adapt to and build on that template once we’re able to, but I have hope it will be beautiful.