Welcome to the 'Coronaisance'!
Good morning lovelies!
🌿☀️💖
I hope you had a mind-blowing, heart-opening, soul-warming weekend, full of joy, art, movement, yummy food, love and plenty of rest rest. 🤗 I was reading, crocheting, and thinking a lot about what changes these new times might bring with them - and what we, in return, decide to take along.
In order to move forward, it sometimes helps to look back.
Most of us heard of the "Renaissance" in school: the period in European history marking the transition from the "Dark" Middle Ages to Modernity (roughly 14th-17th century). It was accompanied by a cultural, economic, political, scientific and intellectual explosion, and many historians credit is as "the most profoundly important period in human development since the fall of Ancient Rome". Ok then! 🤗 Literally translated, however, ‘Renaissance’ means nothing but “rebirth" - and without it, today's world would look utterly different. 🧚♀️
From Darkness to light.
During the 14th century, a cultural movement called "humanism" began to gain momentum in Italy, backed by the famous and ultra-wealthy Medici family (who financially supported many artists, writers, and scholars). The main idea behind humanism is that even though man is the centre of his own universe, he could dramatically evolve through education - thus, the focus on art, science, and literature. In general, humanists believe that experience, free will, and rational thinking provide the only source of both knowledge and a moral code to live by, summarised in the Golden Rule: “Treat other people as you would like them to treat you." 🌺
Obviously, these mind-blowing, revolutionary ideas started to spread much faster when good old Gutenberg invented his printing press (1450) that gave international recognition and fame to geniuses such as
- Leonardo da Vinci (the Mona Lisa guy);
- Rene Descartes ("I think therefore I am");
- Galileo (put under house arrest for saying that the earth moves around the sun, not the other way around);
- Machiavelli (famous political advisor);
- William Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet); and
- Michelangelo (the guy who painted the Sistine Chapel)
- just to name a very very very very few!
While all those artists and thinkers were busy using their talents to express new ideas, some other Europeans stayed more focused on earthly matters, and took to the seas. Their goal: to learn more about the world around them - and to make mad amount of money if they found new lands to rob from.🙈 Known as the "Age of Discovery", several explorations were made by guys like Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo, leading to the discovery of new shipping routes to America, India and the Far East. And we all know how this story ends.
Thus, it is fair to say that if the Renaissance would not have occurred, Europe wouldn't have become the cultural and economic centre of the world at the time, and maybe the Middle East or Asia would have taken (back) its place instead. In any case: The world we live in now would not be the same.
Welcome to the 'Coronaisance'.
Maybe humanity is finding itself again in the eye of a gigantic transformational storm; a period of immense cultural, economical, and political change just like 600 years ago? The old ways don't work anymore, but nobody knows how tomorrow will look like, feel like, taste like ... be like! ☘️ While this is very scary, and creates global anxiety for very valid reasons, I urge you to switch sides today, and see what we can call "the Coronaisance" as a gigantic opportunity - for us individually, our relationship with nature, and our species as a whole. ☀️
What if we try to find our own way back to Humanism 2.0? What if we choose to follow our calling, instead of relying on systems and pathways that now proof to be dead-ends? What if we use the turbulences to cut the crap that we are all guilty of telling us and others, and quietly, without much drama, choose to return back home to our true, hopeful, positive, shining selves? 🦋 So today, take a moment, and instead of asking yourself what you may do to further contribute to the dying model, ponder about what skills you can or want to share in a new world.
What do I create? How do I listen? How do I play? Why do people look to me for certain advise? How may I share my gift? Who relies upon it? How can I give and receive love? How can I be part of the change to a better, more positive world simply by doing what makes me truly happy?
This short 5-minutes-video by Mel Robbins, a woman who has helped me a lot over the last years with her zero-bullshit-attitude, might help to spark inspiration in finding answers to the questions above.
Never forget: Every dark side holds the light - it is up to us to seek and see it. ☀️
Wishing you a wonderful Monday!
With love from Goa,
Isabelle 🌿
