day fifteen: rebirth
You have been telling people that this is the 11th hour. Now you must go back and tell people that this is The Hour.
-Hopi Elder
Many agree that the world as we know it has died but it’s up to us to decide what will be born in its place—what phoenix will rise from these ashes. We cannot go back. We must move forward and create something new.
The When is Now began as a phrase spoken to me by a friend while walking through the streets of Edinburgh in October 2018. He and his wife moved to the UK after his mother-in-law died. In our conversation, he shared how they’d been postponing various things in their life. When we retire. When we sell the house. When this and when that. Maybe you have your own list of whens. I sure did. Then a confluence of events made them realize the when is now. No more waiting. No more someday.
In October 2019, I finished writing an outline for a coaching book, and when I mentioned the title to a writer friend she told me that it was already being used by a sci-fi TV show. At that moment, I realized The When is Now was the better name, so I asked my friend in the UK if I could use it and he generously said yes. But the story doesn’t end there. I left shortly after last Thanksgiving with a one-way ticket to London.
On Boxing Day, the high street in Hampstead was covered with anti-semitic graffiti. Days before I had been there for a Hanukkah party. The same had happened on the performing arts building at my son’s university in Manhattan and also at the subway station I use. Only two weeks prior to Boxing Day, I was in Anne Frank’s annex in Amsterdam. Climbing the steps she climbed. Looking out the windows she looked out. What was happening in our world? Why did it seem we were going backwards instead of forwards?
I didn’t know what I could do about the hate and division I was witnessing in our world, but I knew that doing nothing was no longer an option. I booked a return ticket to the US and started working on The When is Now’s second iteration—a movement of sorts that would include inspiring content and large group gatherings. I imagined something that would create empathy and unity, but I couldn’t see all the pieces. My perfectionistic personality didn’t like the vague process, but I surrendered to it.
I took the steps as they presented themselves. I bought the URL and started building the website. I secured social media handles and enlisted the help of respected friends. When the coronavirus pandemic hit and large group gatherings were no longer an option, I realized I’d been building the infrastructure for this without knowing it, and so here we are—since 3.30.2020, hundreds of people have read these lessons about change and considered what their part in this new world might be, no matter how big or small.
Over the desk in the makeshift office I created in a closet at my mother’s house where I’ve been since the beginning of the quarantine, I have a huge photo of Martin Luther King Jr. tacked up. A new world starts with a dream. It starts in our imagination.
As I consider the world I hope we build, I keep returning to Arundhati Roy’s words:
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
The bubonic plague killed half of Europe’s population—it was followed by the Renaissance.
Reflective Journal Prompts
Write about what new world you are imagining. Let yourself go wild. It doesn’t matter if what you see is realistic or not.
What part of that new world you wrote about are you personally willing to fight for?
Discussion Prompts
Talk about what good could come out of these unsettling times. How the world might be better because of what’s happening. For children, ask what they like about this time period.
Suggested Action
Commit to a change you’ve been forced to make during this time that you’d like to keep.