The Death and Resurrection of St Corona(virus) - Mark Lee ...
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The Death and Resurrection
of St Corona(virus)
Our planet has entered the Anthropocene – a new geological epoch when humanity’s influence is
causing global climate change, the loss of wild spaces, and a drastic decline in the richness of life.
Microbes are not exempt. Whether on coral reefs or in human guts, we are disrupting the
relationships between microbes and their hosts, often pulling apart species that have been together
for millions of years. Ed Yong.
her with Syria, other with Marseilles in
In just a matter of a few weeks our world has France, while some claim that she began
been turned up-side-down. Many businesses to be honoured in northern and central
have ground to a halt, schools and universities Italy.
closed, travel severely restricted, while the
medical profession has gone into overdrive,
Because her name is so closely associated
battling a disease the spread of which seems
extremely difficult to halt. Governments
with thevcovid-19 virus (which is named
scramble to contain a crisis that defies much because of its crown-like shape), she has
of their power and wisdom. And the scientific gained a popular repute as a patron saint
community scurries around for any clue that for infectious diseases but, actually, that
might lead to a vaccine and a cure. honour belongs to the British, St. Edmund,
who died around 869 CE.
Faith communities have shut down churches,
mosques, and temples. Television stations, When Humanity is Overcome by a Virus
and other multi-media channels are beaming
out religious services, for those who feel the The coronavirus has dramatically changed
need to fulfil such duties. Millions around the the rhythm and run of human life. Several
world are turning to popular devotions,
disturbing questions are floating around in
bombarding God, or their favourite saint, for
the human ecosphere. The powers that
safety and protection.
have been run off their feet doing what
Co-incidentally, Germany's Aachen they think they are best at doing, and
Cathedral has dug out the relics of the what most of us expect them to be doing,
little-known Saint Corona, having already namely controlling and resolving the
planned even before the coronavirus problem through the power of rational
outbreak to display her relics during the reason.
Summer of 2020 as part of an exhibition
on gold craftsmanship. However, so many people now suspect
that there is more to this crisis than just a
According to legend, Corona was a young rational scientific explanation. A few
sixteen-year-old girl who suffered a fundamentalist religionists have their own
gruesome death, martyred for her faith version of rationalization: this is God
around 177 CE. Some traditions associate punishing us for our sins. Most religions
however, striving to be politically correct,
Page | 1are just trying to be nicely reassuring to its habitat damaged by deforestation -- its
everybody. Nobody has even hinted at the immune system is challenged, and it finds
fact that what we have been enduring in it harder to cope with pathogens than it
the health crisis of 2020 is one of the most would otherwise do in a natural way. As
vivid articulations of the Paschal Journey the infection becomes more activated in
(Death-cum-Resurrection) that we have the host (mammal or animal), it gets more
seen in a long time. readily transmitted to other creatures,
including humans.
The disease appears to have
originated from a Wuhan seafood market It seems that the covid-19 virus originated
where wild animals, including marmots, in the so-called wet-markets of Wuhan,
birds, rabbits, bats and snakes, are traded China where wild animals are held in
illegally. Bats are a possible source of the captivity, alienated from their natural
coronavirus, but it appears that it is habitats, and often held in appalling
humans who are to blame for the spread conditions, extremely stressful for the
of the disease. animals and the birds. Consequently,
there is a high probability that viruses are
Bats are the only mammal that can fly, being shed in large numbers. Additionally,
allowing them to spread in large numbers the mass transportation of such animals
from one community over a wide area. increases the risk of spreading such
When bats fly they have a peak body viruses.
temperature that mimics a fever. It
happens at least twice a day, namely, The problem, it would seem, is not the
when they fly out to feed and when they bats (or other animals and birds) but
return to roost. And the kind of pathogens money-driven human exploitation, and an
they carry have evolved to withstand appalling ignorance of the ecological
these peaks of body temperature." equilibrium upon which all life flourishes.
Therefore, the most cost-effective way to
This means they can harbour a large protect humans is not by discovering new
number of pathogens, or diseases. Flying vaccines but by humans themselves
also requires a tremendous amount of learning to protect all life-forms within
activity for bats, which has caused their their authentic ecological niches.
immune systems to become very
specialized. In other words, bats can cope And beyond the realm of other creatures
with this pathogen in a way humans who share the planet with us is the well-
cannot. We just don’t have the resilience being of the planet itself. When we
to withstand the virus which other transform vast tracks of forest into
mammals do. agricultural land, as has happened
extensively in the Amazon region, we
Why does the disease transfer in the first impact negatively on climate, carbon
place? One response from the scientists is storage, water-tables, and thousands of
that of zoonotic spillover indigenous plant and tree species that
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spillover_i have been extensively used to produce
nfection), and this is where human medicines for human use. Or when we
interference comes into play. When a bat strip mountains bare for mineral
is stressed -- by being hunted, or having resources, as in the Philippines, and
Page | 2several African countries, not merely do to stabilize, and sometimes they are positive,
we expose people to environmental accelerating change.
disasters like mud-slides, destroying
homes, we once more severely disturb the At the moment, the biggest threats to the
ecological balances so necessary for delicate balance that makes this planet
wholesome living, for human, animal, and habitable are human-caused climate
plant alike. change and the destruction of
biodiversity. Scientists agree that if
On top of all that, as the virus raged in individuals, businesses, and governments
Wuhan province in China, severe don't take significant action within the
restrictions for travel were put in place. In next decade to curb emissions, the
a matter of a few weeks, the smog lifted damage will be catastrophic. Already, the
and people could see the blue sky again; effects to the natural world are massive
birds returned to favoured habitats, and and deadly, including infectious disease
fishes to old streams. Now that humans transmission patterns. But where
had to recede from their anthropocentric scientists and popular movements have
driven-ness, earth could once more thus far failed to convince the world to
reclaim its innate organicity! act, it seems that Mother Earth may have
succeeded, with the never-before-seen
Are we getting the message? We had Covid-19 virus.
better wake up and we better do so
quickly! Right now, we are certainly a threatened
species, and the main threat is coming
from our own reckless behaviour. Going
The Death of Viral Humans beyond our compulsive drive for control
and domination, we are now acting ever
In the 1970s, chemist James Lovelock (in more like a voracious virus, consuming
collaboration with the microbiologist, and destroying its own organism. We have
Lynn Margulis) developed the Gaia become a kind of self-created cancer, with
hypothesis; the theory that all organic and a collective virulence that may already be
inorganic components on the planet are out of our control.
part of one self-regulating system,
working to maintain and perpetuate life For Homo Sapiens, this is undoubtedly a
on earth. The Gaia hypothesis states that Calvary moment. The long history of the
the atmosphere and surface sediments of universe suggests that indeed there can
the planet Earth form a self- regulating be an ensuing Resurrection, but never
physiological system — Earth's surface is without a big price to pay. Look at the
alive. major extinctions that have occurred over
the previous several million years, the
One aspect of Gaia that's crucially important most recent involving the demise of the
and backed by evidence is that life is not just a dinosaurs, approximately 66 million years
passenger on this planet. Living things are ago.
active participants, capable of causing massive
changes in the oceans and atmosphere. This It is widely agreed that the extinction of
leads to a range of feedback loops. Sometimes
the dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid -
the feedbacks are negative, keeping conditions
10 kilometres across – that struck just off
Page | 3the coast of the Yucatan peninsula. Dense
clouds of dust blocked the sun's rays, Rising to New Life
darkening and chilling the earth to deadly
levels for most plants and, in turn, many When it comes to how we are treating the
animals. Then, when the dust finally earth, from which we draw all life and
settled, greenhouse gases created by the sustenance, we humans face a grim
impact caused temperatures to skyrocket death-infested future. Planet Earth
above pre-impact levels. Such climate certainly flourishes on extensive
extremes led not merely to the extinction heterotrophy. A heterotroph is an
of the dinosaurs, but to the demise of 70 organism that cannot produce its own
percent of all plants and animals living at food, instead taking nutrition from other
the time. sources of organic carbon, mainly plant or
animal matter. In the food chain,
I accept that the asteroid was the external heterotrophs are primary, secondary and
mechanism that brought about such tertiary consumers, but not producers. In
destruction, but I am not convinced that it other words, ours is a planet where
is the complete explanation. In fact, there creatures live off each other, a process
are several other suggestions, all verging that often looks cruel and barbaric to the
around the notion that the dinosaurs had human eye, oblivious as we are to the fact
become a powerful species, trampling that we live within a paradoxical creation,
over several other life-forms, and within of which this is a central feature. Despite
themselves developing bodily features its apparent barbarity, heterotrophy
that began to undermine their own health operates on a delicate organic balance, a
and well-being. Although we cannot at simple example being that of the lion(ess)
this time muster the objective rigorous who kills for need, but not for greed as we
data required by science, there are several humans do. We, humans, are unique in
indications that had the asteroid not hit, the reckless killing of planetary life that
the dinosaurs would have become extinct we pursue.
anyhow through a process of self-
destruct. Hence, the oft-cited popular And that is our crucifixion today, whether
statement, “going the way of the manifested through the coronavirus, or
dinosaurs.” the other kick-backs from our suffering,
tortured earth. If we want to opt for a
Metaphorically, it is no mere wild fantasy more wholesome and sustainable future,
to ask: “Did Mother Earth choose to get if we want a share in some kind of
rid of the dinosaurs, precisely because “resurrection” hope then the following
they had become so overbearing and changes would seem to be non-
destructively powerful?” Which brings to negotiable.
mind the sardonic quip from the
controversial microbiologist, Lynn 1. We need to revisit our origins and come
Margulis: “Gaia is a tough bitch — a to terms with the fact that we are born of
system that has worked for over three the earth – we do not come into the
billion years without people. This planet's world, we come out of it – and it is our
surface and its atmosphere and status as Earthlings that define all we are
environment will continue to evolve long and all we are meant to be.
after people and prejudice are gone.”
Page | 42. We must learn to treat our earth as an future needs to be much more earth-
alive organism, and not merely as a centred and collaborative.
material object which we thoughtlessly
and ruthlessly use for our benefit and 8. We need to learn and appropriate anew
usufruct. our true human story of seven million
years during which time we lived in a
3. We must face our anthropocentric much more convivial relationship with the
arrogance, and come to realise that we living earth, thus opting to outgrow the
too are just another organic species, petrified, reductionist anthropology of the
unique to be sure, but not superior to any past few thousand years.
of the other creatures who share the web
of life with us. These are some of the non-negotiable
elements we need to wrestle with as a
4. We must come to terms with the fact human species, if we stand any hope of
that our role is to be egalitarian co- living meaningfully as Earthlings from here
operators and not brutal competitors, and on. The critical issue now facing us is not
our educational systems need to change the damage we will do to the earth and its
urgently to make that shift in value- resources. It is becoming persuasively
orientation. clear, despite the fact that few scientists
want to look reality in the eye, that we
5. In so far as we consume from, and of, have transgressed our human-earth
other organic creatures, we must learn to boundaries, and that the intelligent alive
do so in a much more informed and earth is not going to tolerate us beyond a
collaborative way. For instance, do we certain point.
need to be meat-eaters to flourish and
survive as a human species?
Survival or Flourishing?
6. We need to evolve an economics – and
accompanying social and political Our earth will survive – she has done so
structures – that treats all earth’s through several major crises throughout
resources as gifts (a gift-economy), to be the past 3-4 billion years. Survival on its
shared sustainably for the good of all. For own is not just what we humans are
instance, as we strip thousands of meant to be about. Flourishing is our
hectares of Amazonian forest to provide default position, but that we cannot do
more meat, we don’t seem to realize that with a flourishing earth as well. It would
over 50% of our medicines are gifted to us seem that our current role as Earthlings is
by the plants and tress of that same to become creation growing into deeper
source. consciousness. We have this unique gift of
being self-reflexive beings, creatures who
7. For those of us following mainline can think about the fact that we can think.
religions, we need to come to terms with Currently, we are using that unique
the fact that all the major religions carry a propensity to lord it over everything else
dark shadow of imperial power and in creation, dismissing creation as a mere
control, that no longer makes any spiritual material object, instead of realising that
sense. An empowering spirituality for the our capacity for self-reflexivity was
Page | 5actually given to us by the evolving creation of which we are an integral part. It is that call to Earth/Cosmic integration that now echoes across our world. We must transcend our maverick belligerence, our imperial posturing, our reckless exploitation of natural resources. Creation will have an evolving future, with or without us. Now is the perennial time in which we have to face what is probably the most crucial choice, we humans have ever had to make. Will we make it through? Time alone will tell. Can St. Corona offer us any help or guidance (if she ever actually lived)? She was probably a utopian legend of her time, enabling people to make some sense of the pain and suffering of persecution, much of which was religious in nature. St. Corona might never have existed, but St. Corona(virus) most certainly does exist, as a signal, or icon, of a different kind of persecution, one which we humans have drawn on ourselves. This persecution is no longer religious in nature. It is cultural and humanly-induced, and it will take more than a vaccine to remedy the ensuing crisis. The phrase so widely used “it is in our hands” has a great deal more to it than initially meets the eye. Diarmuid O’Murchu - March 2020 Page | 6
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