It is not easy to discern the nature of the situation. At this point, the coronavirus is mutating—as expected. As humans work to strengthen defenses by internal and external means—enhancing immunological response, masks, regulations, and vaccines—the virus is under pressure to improve its capability of attaching to the body and reproducing itself.

This is common in our symbiotic relationship with microbes. We would not exist without them. Yes, they have created deadly and crippling strands, but also have created variations that have become an intrinsic part of our body and even our DNA. Viral mutations and their access to our DNA code has allowed some of them to become part of the survival tools we have developed; and indeed, part of what has improved our capacity to feel more, to grow in consciousness, and to develop our capacity to evolve.

As we seek to become immune from this virus, there is an intelligence attempting to make the virus better at what it does. It is the same intelligence that allows humans to try to understand and survive. Either the virus gets controlled and rendered innocuous, or it becomes too strong for us—is how most of us tend to think of the road ahead. However, evolutionary ethnohistory teaches us that there are times when the viral entity has become so good as to learn not only to bypass our defenses, but to evolve to the point where it becomes a important collaborative tool for our evolution, increasing thus our intelligence, sensorial acuity, and capacity to face this infinite vastness wherein we thrive.

What is to happen with this one strand? We don’t know, except for one thing. We must do what we have always done: strive beyond the limits of our comfort to understand, to survive, and to keep growing in joy to thrive in the face of any and all adversities. This is what allows all beings around us to also strive to improve.

As we evolve, so do all things around us.

Face this time with courage, therefore, and stay alert. But do not succumb to dread and fear of the unknown. Do not fall into the pit of false knowledge either. Opting to feel the comfort of belief is the hubris of a lazy mind. Know, instead, that we are always facing an endless field of light in infinite extension, unknowable, and in this facing of the mystery of existence we take each step into the unknown with courage, with joy, and with the evolutionary tested strategy of having each other’s back. Thrive in the knowledge that as we get better at what we do, so do all sentient beings.