TIME/SPACE

With the coronavirus now occupying the better part of our daily consciousness, I have been noticing a significant shift in my perception of time and space. The familiar rhythm of my life has at once expanded and slowed down, leaving me in a persistent state of disorientation.

In normal circumstances, my brain keeps me pretty much informed as to what time of day it is, but I have been finding a strange kind of fluidity in that perception: any particular time of day--or night, when I wake up--has begun to feel like almost any other time. I notice a bewildering absence of that sense of time's progression from one hour to the next.

As for space, I have noticed that the groundlessness I sometimes come to experience in meditation is now more likely to manifest itself in daily life. My sense of place no longer feels reliable or secure, as though my mind had somehow weighed anchor and left me drifting without coordination or direction.

These are not unpleasant sensations but they are, as I said, disorienting. The virus has detached me--as I suspect many others--from the sense of "reality" that keeps me oriented in my daily life. If I'm patient and observant, I have much to learn about the illusory nature of experience and my attachment to it.