The following is a personal poetic remix of the article recently written by Charles Eisenstein, titled “The Coronation”.

His words are always such beautiful medicine to my heart, especially during tough times, and this moment in history is no different. I am honoured to have the opportunity to re-work his 9000 word essay of inspiration into this 3500 word, poetic response/summary (I tried to summarize but it’s so juicy!).

While this remix contains most of the meaty details and points, I still highly recommend reading the full article for an expansion of the ideas, stories, and concepts.

You can find the full original text here, or there is also an audio version here.

You can follow this link to a video of me performing the piece; I think it’s more fun with the rhyming, rhythm, and timing in the live 🙂 

Without further adieu, The Coronation Remix!

The Coronation Remix – A Poetic Response by Skye

Our rope of normal has stretched and snapped, as we are blast into the past, and asked,
Do we tie it back, to lack, or unweave and tease,
Our disagreements that beseech us to witness the swiftness of
metamorphosis,
When collective agreement finds diagnosis; a common cause, a moment of pause, to examine our flaws,
To decide was is now was,
And what is now is.

Do we really need all those jobs or so much Disneyland?
Flying planes to tradeshows and to see the band?

And what needs to be restored? Perhaps our liberties, our time with trees?
Our hugs, our handshakes, our body sovereignties?

For with our habits made visible, our task, to create a new normal, less divisible,
Perhaps something minimal, with a dash of the subliminal.

The crossroads ahead is finally here!
A hundred and one choices as we stop for a beer,
Do we recreate the same hellish tier,
Or a world healed, beautiful, and full of endear?

What do we choose?

No hugs for a month seems a small price to save millions,
As billions stay home to flatten the curve, and swerve,
Us away from this dis-ease, so please, can somebody please,
Tell me what kind of new normal we are accepting?
Permanent tracking? Forced body hacking? Information whacking?
Military hijacking? Only approved back-packing? Is totalitarianism really lacking?

The trends of control and domination: separation, virtualization, isolation, and domestication,
Were well under way already,
As we held steady,
The bearing, the tilt, our collective teddy, always at the ready,

Now faced with an initiation, a solidification, an activation into a re-calibration.

Our comfortable security teddy is our default impulse to respond,
Both, with a re-flex of controlling this and beyond,
And, with a war-flex outlook on death and our bond.

First, a dip of the toe into the reflex of con-trol,
For a troll-con it is indeed, a trickster’s plead,
For one bite will always require another, an endless bid in a war with the other.

Howeverhow, many deaths, compassion calls us to do what we can,
Those numbers are people, with loved ones, family, and friends with a plan.

But how bad is it really? How can anyone truly know?

Death rates range – most are mild, asymptomatic, or undocumented,
Throw in reports of false positives, up to 80%, and we are presented,
With the knowing that we will never truly know how badly it has dented.
For how do you know what you believe is true, or simply invented?

We just don’t know!

And in the face of the unknown, two tendencies emerge;
One; Hysteria – a self-feeding loop, creating a world just like the purge;
Two; Denial – an irrational rejection, of that which is disruptive to the comfort urge;

We just don’t know!

If total deaths are lower, did the controls work?
Or was it that the virus was just a minor jerk?

We just don’t know!

Luckily, knowing numbers isn’t required,
But just in case, here’s a few I’ve acquired:
5 million, children died globally last year, their hunger expired;
1 million, people on Earth to suicide, their hearts, no longer inspired;

Not to mention, the threat of nuclear tension, the looming ecological suspension.
So I have to ask; why no emergency, changes, or attention to prevention?
We felt helpless, immobile, frozen in our trajectory’s convention…

Wait, what’s this? If we can do it for covid,
we CAN do it for the rest of the grid!

Our world’s hungering, our addiction mongering, our suicidal youngering,
Have no control, no war, no enemying – our forces ineffective,
When it’s an internal, autoimmune disaster within the collective,
We rally behind the virus, channel our fears and helplessness into the directive,

Of control for the crisis – quarantine, lockdown, handwash, and isolation,
This threat we know like Isis – limit movement, bodies, dissent, and information.

In all aspects of life, force is no longer working,
Our institutions were failing, but they love an enemy lurking.

Authorities welcome this threat – a chance to handle one as proxy for what they cannot,
Our guns and bombs we forget – do nothing for hatred or the domestic violence we have wrought,
The antibiotics and surgery upset – fail with obesity and the addiction with which we are fraught,
Our police and prison duet – fall short in their healing of the crime conditions we all brought,

Pesticides cannot restore the soil
And so, we toil, we tweedle-dee, and tweedle-dum, so we can tweedle-do like the good ol’ days of yester-morrow.
When our weapons worked and the world improved,
Technology controlled the frays, and now, covid takes us back to what’s approved.

Control and dominate works well with an ‘other’,
The go-to is fighting, the battle is to totally smother.
But what, when the problem is intimate, or straight from the Earth mother?
What, then, when we miss the ground conditions that lead us to big brother?
So we manufacture an enemy – be, it in crime, terror, or disease undercover,
It’s the us versus them mentality – a call to arms, while 5 million children do not recover.

Let us diverge a moment into the diversely speculative,
Was covid deliberate, a perfect totalitarian narrative?
The framework was in place, the technological control imperative,
From tracking to policing, detention to a cash ban declarative,
Censorship and suspension of assembly play into their preparative.

So juicy! Is it not? But does it really matter? Let’s untie this knot!

See, the thing is,
To pass life’s quiz, we chose to extend our control:
Domestication of the wild, conquering the exiled, mastering nature’s beguiled, engineering the flower child.

We’d get the same result from an unconscious systemic tilt,
Ordering, counting, and categorizing reality – mastery of materiality without the guilt.

Conspiracy or not, from this deeper mythology it makes sense to control,
The hammer is ready, so hammer it will.
The tool will be applied, as opportunity arised, and actions start to unroll,
It’s for the common good after all, so sit down and be still!

Even if the illuminati exists, no nefarious motives are needed,
This is our centuries old track, of course, sacrifice freedoms for security we all pleaded!

Blaming a rumoured shadow is still us versus them,
The systems and tilt that control and blame the pathogen.
We point fingers around while ignoring the soil,
Deliberate or the wind is secondary in our toil.

Truly, we don’t know! How can we decipher?
With all the news, fake news, rumours, and conspiracy lifers,
Suppressed information, politicized narratives and propaganda ciphers?
Let’s admit to our blinders, and be humble in our beliefs,
As we are open to perspectives and listen to our beefs.

Now we move from our reflex of control,
Into the war on death, our greatest key hole.

For one month away seems reasonable to save millions,
But what about 100,000 instead of billions?
One year or five, away from the pavilions?
These underlying values will vary among the civilians.

Let’s move away from statistics and the sacrifice of some of one for some of another,
And ask,
Would I ask, all children to forgo play for the summer,
If it would reduce the risk to my grandmother?
Would I ban hugs and handshakes to save my life, or that of my brother?

Let’s remember! Life is precious!

But what is the right way to live? And what is the right way to die?
How do we hold death? And do we value play, touch, togetherness, and the freedom to fly?

Remember when children used to be free to roam, away from their home?

Now you can expect a visit from child protective services,
With an emphasis on safety and security nervousnesses.
Have the gloves, hand sanitizer, surveillance, and liability insurances,
Security, metal detectors, or body searches,
Really helped with the circuses,
Or simply created more disservices?

This mantra of “safety first” places survival at the top,
Devaluing fun, play, and adventure to the backdrop.
Children need responsibility and risk to help them prop,
Up a sense of good judgment and self-reliance while they hop,
Instead, we head, far away from the dead, instead,
Fear winds the thread,
Safety too important a line to tread.
Death still awaits us, regardless of how we spread.

And yet the war on death continues, its ultimate triumph remains to conquer completely,
A feat we,
Know can never be.
So we settle our meddle to outright denial.
Our hiding of corpses, our fetish for youthful sources,
Even the warehousing of our elders, into shelters
Trying to render death to not exist… so we twist, things into “me” and “mine”,
trying to extend our self, defining possessions to avoid our inevitable decline.

To the separate self in a world of other,
We do our best to bother,
To protect, to dominate, to survive beyond our mother,

But is this our truest of human nature?
Or only sensible with a certain focus-blur?

What about the value of dying well?
Do we want to be alone in a quarantine cell?
On machines and under a spell?
Or with loved ones, arms embraced before we quell?

What is it to be human? A new story of self is unearthin’!
One that is relational and interdependent is birthin’!

We are but a locus of consciousness in a matrix of relationship,
Inter-existent kinship,
No longer seeking an enemy’s guilt trip,
but rather, a lather, as we gather, to clean our collective earth ship.

For a fear of death is really a fear of life, I suggest,
As one cannot be without the other, my sister and brother,
Let me invite peace into the war on death, as a quest,
To live life fully and to live it well, for humanity’s mother,
As we ask how much to forgo for our absolute safety best,
To steer clear of the totalitarian story of the other,
It all makes sense from within the framework of a competitive contest

With its aim of perfection of control, its denial of death,
The separate self clings, to its very last breath.

We must hold life as sacred! It’s now clear as the sky above,
This means death is our ally, our teacher, our portal to love,
This means death is elevated, our transition, our liberator of love.

A sacred life is not just to live a life-long,
It is to live life well, to live it fully, and right, to belong.

…this is what is on the other side of our fears and our grief…

What kind of world do we want to live into maturity?
How much more do we sacrifice at the alter of security?
How much fear do we allow into perpetuity?
Infectious disease will continue to be a real reality,
In the meantime, and in between time, what can we really guarantee?

What of new viruses? Reinfection of our sinuses? Emergency measure alliances? Eighteen more months from the sciences?
What if a never end to this virus is,
Continuing to cloud our visual irises…

To see beyond our isolation, our addiction, to reducing risk,
A forever application, an amputation, of our dance locations,
Our church congregations, our play vacations, our sports rotations,
Our date creations, our festival relations…

Forever more?

Is death reduction our standard measure of progression?
Does advancement simply mean ever greater separation?
Just like incarceration, leaving home requires an application?
Tracking the population, everyone’s daily mission needs permission?
Covid, like 9/11, trumps all objection to liberty restriction.

Is all of life now to be online?
Do we really want this to be the new baseline?
How many lives are worth the extended lifeline?
These questions we must ask as we consider the long-time.

The regulations will relax, but always remain at the ready,
Our self-imposed OCD habits accelerating, ever steady.

After millions of years of contact, touch, and togetherness,
Cease to be, deemed too risky, too treacherous.

Life is Community! And control breeds a paradox,
It’s goal continues to slip away like a silver fox,
Despite, or, maybe in-spite, of added security in the box,
At home, people remain anxious in their sox
At school, no less mass shootings on their blocks
Despite our medicinal techno-progress in things like small pox,
People are, overall, less healthy, what a flummox!

What if our need to measure, to tether, our covid displeasure,
Causes more suffering and death in an untold amount?
For from within, the numbers, only represent what we CAN predict and count,
But what of that we cannot, what do those numbers, leave out and about?

What of isolation-induced depression?
What of despair from unemployment regression?
What of chronic fear depleting our immune profession?
What of loneliness increasing dementia and inflammation?

Life is community!

Excessive hygiene and social distancing deteriorate immunity,
Allergies and auto immunities can worsen with germicide, no impunity,
Are we doing more harm than good in our discommunity?

For Life. Is. Community.

Social and microbial contact is absolutely necessary for health,
For the vast majority add to our body and to our collective wealth,
Our health, comes from community, a diverse microbiome,
Maintained by the world of life, in and out of our home.

Life, does not thrive in isolation…
With our us versus them blinders of nation and location,
We fail to look much beyond the evil pathogen narration,
To consider the role of viruses in the greater migration,
The body condition, the variety of severity and remission,
The positive role of flus and colds in the maintaining of healthy foundation.

The war on germs, matches,
The war on terror, matches,
The war on crime, matches,
The war on weeds, matches
The war on war on war on war,
And the results are in; They are all the same; War breeds war endlessly,
While diverting attention from the conditions that feed it relentlessly.

Bombing exacerbates the conditions for kick-starting terrorism,
Locking criminals create and acculturate into criminalism,
Antibiotics, vaccines, and antiviral wreck the body’s ecologicalism.

All ism’s aside, could viruses be deeply integral, to life’s evolution and survival?

In Italy, less than 1% of deaths were people free from serious chronic conditions,
Do we blame the virus or underlying poor health positions?

Of course, in the short run, we want to save lives!
No source, in the endless fight, we lose ourselves in symptom drives,
All force, in the current approach, we forget to tend to the vulnerable soil in which it thrives,
Of course, this is not changed by fighting with knives!

For there is no enemy for diabetes, obesity, or addiction,
PTSD, anxiety, or depression affliction

An alternative to the prevailing germ theory; Says that germs are part of much larger processes.
A wider, permaculture tinted lens of query; examines the conditions accommodating such nonsenses.
Is the virus improving the conditions that made you weary; discharging the toxins clogging your body’s responses?

Terrain theory says that germs are a symptom and not a cause,
That is a really great question! Why? Because!
If your fish is sick, do you isolate or clean the tank?
The covid tsunami has swept us back into orthodoxy, to thank

The alternative, the wellness, the holistic for the help,
But now is not the time for frivolous things like deep sea kelp,
This real health crisis is undeniable, so the only viable, lest we be liable, is the reliable,
That is, more of the comfortable same old please, the identifiable

A double down on orthodoxy sweeps all dissent aside,
It side-steps whole-system questions, like how is medicine applied?
Who pays, who has access, who funds research – service or pride?
Are herbs, rest, and energy part of medicine? – we must decide!

Yes! Care for the fish, but also, let’s clean our tank, inside,
Yes! Let’s reexamine theories of illness, health, and bodies we cried,
Yes! Watch your distance and follow the hygienes prescribed,
Yes! We can use the break in normal and rest while we hide,
Yes! It’s time to consciously choose to embrace holistics denied,
What kind of society do we want?
Tattooed medical barcodes, or something with less divide?

For the choice before us is one we must all make,
To bake in greater isolation, to rake in more domination, to snake in super separation,
To break, quake, and shake this new normal, afraid to share our cake?

OR – to take, the pause, examine our stories of because, open to the faux pas,
Restore community flaws, and rejoin the web of life to greater applause!

Do we protect the self or are we in it together?
Are you a survivalist or a helper in stormy weather?

What is life for?

We are starting to ask seriously important questions,
For in these sessions – the homeless procession, the prison regression, the slum suppression, the unemployment depression,
Can a student debt concession or universal basic income progression,

Please get us super serious about how to care for ALL of the vulnerable?

For the impulse of compassion stirs,
regardless of covid’s origin, severity, or how it transfers.

We know we are precious, as all of life certainly is,
Let’s strip down the normal biz, with a fizz, and rebuild a more beautiful world with much less dizz.

Covid stirs our compassion, as all disaster does,
As we leave behind a normal so lacking, really t’was,
And forge a new, compassionate normal, a real reality buzz,
Cuz, it’s in the stories of solidarity and healing,
Revealing, as tips hit the ceiling,
Money given to strangers reeling, essential workers calming our feeling,
Police playing guitars, corporations hiking wages, both appealing,
Children gifting tooth money, students shopping for elderly, even Cuba sending doctors to Italy, still dealing.

Just as death and grief free our love’s greatest blocks,
Crisis mirrors our deepest impulse – a compassionate response,
Disaster liberates solidarity – the ultimate heart renaissance.

For too long we felt stuck, helpless, in an ever-sickening society,
Our systems and patterns causing declining health and decaying quietly,
Be it infrastructure cracked, depression subtract, suicide repacked,
Addiction distract, environment attacked, wealth contract;
Covid has gifted us a reset; a full retract

With a million forking paths ahead, we sit in bed, examining our hearts and our head;
Can UBI end economic insecurity, be a freeing of creativity, instead?
Or will it create greater state dependencies?
Totalitarianism or solidarities?
Medical marshall law or holistic tendencies?
Fear of the microbial or involved participation expectancies?
Permanent social distance or renewed togetherness attendancies?

What can guide us through this muddy fray?
What do we follow, fear or love to play?
Self-preservation or generosities, okay?
Maybe use the crisis as a weapon against our enemies on display!
This is not an all-or-nothing choice we make today,
It’s not all fear or all love, it’s an ongoing survey,
It’s daring, not reckless, I am inclined to say,

The next step before us is simply a step into love,
A deeper trust that the next step will arrive thereof,
As we learn to treasure all life and accept death all above,

For love over fear cannot come from a mere act of will,
Will we fall into the trap and see fear as an enemy until,
Until we change the terrain of the viral fear and fulfill,
Fulfill the fear and trauma, flourishing in separation still,
Still – a moment to transform the usual narrative mill,
Mill your isolation, heal and climb your personal trauma hill,
Hill of primal fear is to be alone in a society addicted to the pill,
Pill we need is one of compassion, kindness, courage and a generosity skill,
Skill in these acts heal the separation, unite actor and witness with tons of extra thrill.

…a bird’s trill… a mocking bird to kill…

Before we wrap up, let’s consider an idea a little further along,
Perhaps viruses are an integral mechanism to life’s evolutionary song?
Through horizontal gene transfer, heritable DNA may not have been wrong,
We are our viruses, they have made us who we are today, and we are strong.
Perhaps, even, the great disease season, quickened our biological and cultural changes, all along?

With the spreading and sharing of novel RNA codes,
Is covid initiating us through a new crossroads?
As genetic information spreads, our default system and narrative explodes

There are three steps to these rite of passages,
First, a separation from normality, a removal from the masses,
Second, a dilemma, a breakdown, an ordeal – a shattering of our glasses,
Third, if we are to succeed, reintegration and celebration, getting us up off our asses!

An initiation into what? What is the purpose of this scary ode?
Let’s look at the name, for corona is a crown we can all decode,
A new coronation for all as we find our inner royalty within the toad.

We are now feeling the power of what we can become,
True sovereigns do not flee life or avoid death with a run,
They do not dominate nor conquer in a tyrannical succumb,
True sovereigns serve the people, serve life, and respect the sovereignty of ALL, not some!

Our coronation, of all the population,
turns the unconscious to a conscious operation,
a chaos to order crystallization,
a compulsion to a choice – a reapplication.

The New World Order is but a shadow of the glorious possibilities ahead,
As we become the rulers of that which has ruled us into bed,
No longer the vassals of fear, we bring order to the kingdom of dread,
And build an intentional society based around love instead!

I am, because you are,
And we are the one’s we’ve been waiting for!