a personal narrative by Agnes Prieto
The clouds scudded on a pristine blue sky, almost a perfect day…except for a silence, too quiet. A leaden weight, the end of a flow of whizzing, scurry of cities and countries, now, a planet at a standstill.
No hurry, there was no way to go. No one knew what to await, except to wonder.
The pandemic had sprung on the routine of life, suddenly, a screech of a brake, then stillness.
Days plodding on, distractions begin– baking breads and testing savories, planting vegetables in the nooks of the garden, decluttering closets for comfy “dasters”, enjoying lounge slippers, just reading favorite books and discovering new ones.
One could get happy and homey but the news of the pandemic hitting frontliners does not feel cozy. Too many fluctuations, mutations, mourning, confusion. Death is a wide swathe killing all over the globe. Overturns life– schools, churches, malls, deserted parks And beaches.
Families have not gathered in almost two years, two Christmases, two Holy Weeks, just stretches of days reading and watching films. No grandkids to hug. No ladies’ lunch-outs.
Then boredom is shattered.
Jolted to find my body aching, my head aching, and I can’t smell at all. I try to stand from my bed but everything is going around. Oh, not me! Anyone but me. But the hacking coughing, the weariness, the fever tells me and the swab is the truth.
The body feels leaden, the joints are creaky, the head is heavy. The throat croaks. But most of all is a spirit trying to struggle, to find the inner courage to go beyond the matter.
I promise myself I would never be hospitalized. My body system has no way to heal in the allopathic way. There were only two major healing remedies I used– Ivermictin and an ancient Chinese medicine for the respiratory system, Lianhua. There was trust in these. My body began to feel lighter, breathing was almost normal. I didn’t need the three small oxygen tanks on hand, only needed a bit to ease my breath. In a few hours, I slumbered.
In three days, I remembered how I found my will to cheer myself up. Build up in my mind a wall where I shut out the sadness, the sorrow, the anxiety and the stress. Take a deep breath of healthy energies, to then flush out all the junk.
The body began to clear as the mind swept out the clutter. The yoga in the mind, of the mind. So that was the third medicine that began the healing. And did it most powerfully. I kept that high frequency as much as I could. It helped that I had meditated for the longest time, almost 30 years. Letting the heaviness slip away from the mind so the body began to let go too.
The days passed, coughing abated, movement oiled the creaky joints, the song within became sweeter. One day, the doctor said the Covid had passed and left. Devastation gone, the virus had its own power but my body and mind was stronger.
Gradually the virus diminished, but leaving a debilitating emptiness of vitality, a voidness in the physical body. It was an angry wave.
The desolateness was a nothingness that left the muscles trembling. What was most difficult, the rage of the virus attacking or the hollowness of life? It felt, ironically, that healing was now beginning at a total zero point, more like a non-life.
The remedy came gradually, from an ancient time, a homeopathic that came from another pandemic, during the middle ages. Ars alb, from a concoction drawn from forests and gardens, fused into a powerful clearness. Just a drop in the morning and evening.
Energy begins to crawl in, a gentle dynamic that pulls life into coherence. Food and drink, so basic, give strength now, until one day , activity springs back.
Sunshine and breezes — all the good things and then some –a killer; the virus integrates into the body and transforms into an immune protector. No need for vaccinations from chemicals, here, the poison combines and forms part of a life-giving essence.
But the foggy unknown, the end at the bridge, continues to beset questions. What is beyond all these? Too many losses, what could ever replace what has gone?
About the writer:
Ma. Agnes Prieto is a writer, grief therapist, and founder of Healing Circles Recovery and Rejoys.
