Last week I had a rude awakening. On a dating site I had two conversations with two men I considered to be intelligent, aware people who weren’t getting vaccinated. I expressed curiosity to both of them about where they were coming from. I told one of them that I didn’t know anyone who hadn’t been vaccinated and had thought previously that people who were choosing not to get vaccinated were from the far right of the political spectrum. Neither of these people fit my stereotype. This person after telling me that he didn’t believe in big pharma and that the government wasn’t to be trusted, said that he didn’t know anyone who was vaccinated. He also said that it didn’t feel good to him to put this vaccine into his body and that he would trust that he wouldn’t get COVID or that he would have a mild case. I was glad I got the chance to be curious and learn.
I remember when I felt like I was healthy and strong and took great care of myself and would never get COVID, before I got COVID. COVID was my teacher. It taught me to honor the process by which it moved through my body by doing little else besides sleeping for ten days. It taught me to be open to getting a vaccine. I knew clearly the experience of having COVID, although I would say I had a medium case, avoiding hospitalization and death, was not something I was willing to repeat. I was convinced that the science on the effects of the vaccine in no way compared to the effects of having COVID.
We are all in this together. This virus affects all of us. I read the other day about the difference between motorcycle helmets and a pandemic. If a person chooses not to wear a motorcycle helmet because he feels it interferes with his personal freedom only his own head gets bashed in in the event of an accident. With COVID we are all interconnected and it seems to me that worrying about infringement of individual preferences is superceeded by large numbers of people dying from this virus. I believe vaccinations have been proven to slow the spread of the virus.
My vision is that over the course of the next few months there will be a realization that we all need to pull together to heal the planet from this virus. The earth is telling us we need to pay attention. What if how we deal with vaccinations is a trial run for how we deal with climate change? I am hoping for people in this country who have decided not to be vaccinated to change their minds in large numbers so we can collectively bring the numbers down of people dying from COVID and begin the larger job of living together in a way that honors Mother Earth and each other.
Thank you for listening.
