This piece was written in the spring of 2020, in the month after many parts of the nation and globe had effectively shut down in an effort to contain the proliferation of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. In my reflections I attempt to explore and make a kind of ecological, psychological, and spiritual sense of a virus so powerful as to irreversibly interrupt the rhythms of human civilization which, as an engine of our collective life drive, has evolved on so many levels in contradistinction to the life of this planet. This disruption of human activity is, in essence, a kind of “gift,” as only through mindful and compassionate attention to the human and nonhuman life in our environment will we glimpse the full significance of our coexistence with the otherness that sustains us.

这篇文章写于 2020 年春天，也就是在美国和全球许多地区为遏制新型冠状病毒 COVID-19 的扩散而有效关闭后的一个月。在我的反思中，我试图探索并创造一种对病毒的生态、心理和精神意义，它如此强大，以至于不可逆转地打断了人类文明的节奏，而人类文明作为我们集体生活驱动的引擎，已经在如此多的层面上进化与这个星球的生命形成鲜明对比。这种对人类活动的干扰本质上是一种“礼物”，因为只有通过对环境中人类和非人类生命的正念和同情关注，我们才能一窥我们与支持我们的他者共存的全部意义。