2020: OUR CANARY IN THE COAL MINE

Through the turbulent times ahead, will come to know that we only experience and exist inside the reality we create.

- Joy Mooy

Modern society, with all its conveniences, its go-to-Mars technology, and its experts in every field, couldn’t stop the momentum of a microscopic virus that upended the planet in 2020. Time-lapse photography followed its trajectory as it halted travel and social activity, and derailed economies across the globe. Each day dragged on like it was a month. The endless count of the number of cases and the deaths that followed created a secondary epidemic of anxiety and fear that wore down psychological defenses. In a haze of VirusFatigue citizens rebelled. They ignored common sense and risked their lives and the lives of others by insisting it was a hoax.

Up until 1986, miners took canaries into coal mines to warn them of the buildup of carbon monoxide gases that could kill everyone. In 2020, Covid-19 became the canary in our holistic coal mine. Sitting in the quiet solitude of months-long lockdown, I remembered the excitement when the world entered the 21st century. There was such optimism expressed for the future. Instead optimism became catatonic. All the disgraces “we the people” have been heaping on the planet rose to the surface in a behavioral tsunami of disrespect, racism, white supremacy, blatant lies and hatred for one another. Citizens in every country participated in the same behavior either overtly or by inactive complicity. In the wake of that hideous behavior, the delicate balance of inter-species relationships was unhinged.