Hi all, Eishi here! Hope you are doing well!

This is the first post since the “lockdown” started here in New Zealand.

Reading back to the entry below, it is amazing how much has changed in such a short time!

Earlier this month, my master and I had our first “Oyako-kai” (Master-Disciple Recital) here in Auckland. Through this performance, my master indirectly expressed his permission for me to be his disciple, not just a student.

Due to its success, some REALLY exciting opportunities were offered to me…

In short, I was on top of the world!

Then, the virus…

Pretty much all of my performer, actor, producer friends lost their jobs overnight… including myself. Wow!

Being the person I am, my first reaction to this situation was… curiosity and hope.

Don’t get me wrong. I am extremely saddened by the sufferings that people in some parts of the world are going through.

As the husband of a medical worker, I myself have a high chance of getting the virus, too.

Yet, I cannot help but feel hope for a better world.

I can already see humanity getting united.

There is this sense of unity among humans for the first time in a very long time.

We are in this together!

This is THE opportunity for us humans to reexamine what really matters to us.

This is the time to dream of a world that is not greed driven.

The reduced carbon emission, due to travel restrictions, may mean that we could heal this planet at least a little bit.

This is the time for a paradigm shift!

I believe that humans are temporarily in cocoons to get ready to fly farther as beautiful butterflies when we are through this!

You might have read this poem before, but it really summarises what I cannot describe with my limited vocabulary:

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.”   

Kitty O’Meara