A Dark Spirit Awakens - Surreal Times - Modern Man - Lee Patrick Wilson

My earlier photo taken on Sunday 8th March 2020 whilst walking in the countryside and exploring the land I call home, a huge black cloud filled a narrow section of the sky, it reached far beyond the horizon. As I looked up and raised my camera the light broke through the cloud of darkness, a face with two eyes shone down onto the land below, surrounding the face the cloud parted further showing what looked like black wings arched, curved and closing in on the light, pulling the darkness back to block the light, these black wings and the black cloud a leviathan in the sky making the huge open landscape I stood upon and had spent hours walking seem miniscule in comparison to the closing black wings.

Thoughts of a personnel Revelation of the plague to follow filled my mind in the backdrop of the ever spiralling news stories of SARS cov 19;

Deep in my imagination the obscure face and dark wings of the black clouds reached back beyond the horizon perhaps spreading all the world over, maybe releasing droplets of filthy virus rain on to the land & people below, or more fittingly black clouds formed not of water vapour but of human emotion, black clouds of fear and suffering, the clouds visible, a formation of some malevolent spirit re awakened after a long sleep, beyond the living memory & comprehension of modern man, the spoils of its last feed long worn off; the Black Death, Spanish flu, World Wars, The Cold War any other global event of despair and human suffering, did the clouds form then in the same way ? Did the beast play its hand and takes its feed?

Three weeks after taking the photos of the dark spirit in the clouds above and society in Britain is not the same place that it was only days before this revelation and only months after patient zero.

Society across the entire World is not the same place that it was, the global network of ultrafast human travel that we all grew to use, love and abuse is now grounded. Skies once filled with jet trails glistening in the rising and setting sun now rest clear except where instead they are filled by this re-awakened entity. Entire airports and air fleets that enabled the SARS Virus to spread so rapidly and grow into a global pandemic now sit empty, they, the cause of their own ruin and cause of loss of so many lives, an indirect consequence of their purpose. With fleets of commercial airlines parked for an unknown period of time, weeks, months, years, indefinitely, will they ever return! No one knows for sure?

Citizens who didn’t move early enough shrouded in complacency are now trapped across the globe in foreign countries with no possibility of walking home as oceans and mountains, the mass of the very earth we reside, divides them. Distance, once made a mockery of by these flying ships of the sky, now quickly regains its meaning. Miles now only covered on ground or by sea and the work of covering these distances is once again remembered.

Out at sea and docked in ports around the world the vast metallic leviathans, the wealthiest of the first world have been so eagerly encouraged to board, these vessels of the sea the long voyage cruise ships reflect the same transfer of the virus as the airlines but the slow speed and days on the ocean allow time for viral symptoms to show, isolating those on board and incubating the virus, microcosms of the world and suffering to follow as those on the cruise ships which steadily fill with infected and the survival of the fittest emerges once again, another industry one of countless more and a way of life that will unlikely ever regain the confidence of its custom and no doubt will wear the scars of SARS cov 19 for years to follow, maybe they will never recover?

Governments have addressed nations, closed down normal society and everyday way of life for many citizens in a bid to reduce the spread of the Virus, the people stay at home in lock down across all lands, with the hope of saving lives by delaying the rapid onslaught of this unrelenting, indiscriminate killer virus and ravenous monster that surrounds them.

Nation by nation Hospitals ready & prepare for the tsunami of infected patients to follow, whilst in some nations the wave has already hit, chaos ensues as the pillars of society crumble and the illusion of stability is broken, as more and more become infected.

The health care professionals form the frontline in this Health War and as in any war begin to be hit by the virus, fallen to the enemy, casualties mount globally into the tens of thousands per day and the workers of the light continue to face the beast head on as they always have in which ever form it has taken.

The frontline extends to food production and accessibility of the same which cannot fail given the size and ill prepared populous who grew complacent as the dark spirit slept, the dark spirit slept for so long after a bountiful feasting period that humanity calls the 20th Century and as the spirit continued to sleep and shrink, the complacency of Modern Man grew and humanity forgot about the knife edge it sits on and how quickly change can happen. Knowledge of food production and maintenance of essential machinery that was learnt to be essential in WW2 and long before then was quickly forgotten as the darkness slept and the people became consumers and single minded in the worship of money, vice & relaxation.

The loss of rudimentary survival knowledge suited business as more profit was to be made and the cycle continued, of complacency, loss of skills, loss of connection with nature, loss of survival instinct until;

The dark & ravenous spirit awakened and hungry after decades of sleep, shrunken to a gentle breeze, a whisper in a man’s ear, a dream formed in the depth of sleep, the only power the spirit needed to set the wheels in motion, the butterfly effect its weapon, this agent of chaos, small actions over time making huge impact, until the dark spirit can feed and grow and spread. The spirit of darkness was and is and will be well versed and attuned to its method, as a farmer is to his crop, the dark spirit has lived and fed and slept over all of time, back to the first man and deep down the people of modern man hadn’t totally forgotten the existence of the spirit of darkness, of despair, the feeder of fear, of souls, of their own consumption.

The dark spirit is remembered in the heart of all life, hidden deep in the sleeping psyche of man, reflected in a dream catcher hung in an empty window, a candle lighting a darkened room, a cross and rosary hanging from a rear view mirror, a prayer made before bed, emerging in bad nights sleep, in nightmares of the end of days, of apocalypse, the fear that arises in the heart of Modern Man, in the depth of the night, in the glowing street lights of an empty city street, in an silent graveyard lit only by moonlight, when alone in an office block the last one out, at home a noise in the night, children hidden under bedsheets bated with silent breath and eyes squeezed shut, an adult making the journey from the bedroom makeshift weapon in hand ready to fight or run, away from the city in daylight the fear of approaching an overgrown darkened wood, that is the ingrained knowledge of the dark spirit that feeds, of the beast, memory instilled in the core of our being forgotten by living memory but still known to the heart.

But there is hope and the Light Will Prevail

I respect anyone's belief and creed, faith in all forms, as faith brings hope in dark times, steady thought and actions in chaotic times and brings peoples together. I claim no affinity to the church or institutions as despite best intentions they seem to nature self service and attract darkness through power, unquestionable power only brings exclusion instead of inclusion, malevolent suffering instead of goodness & light, yet I still have faith, faith in the hearts & mind of humanity. Faith in love which links all of the earths creatures, great & small. The good done through truth in morality, truth of the heart, truth of nature & science, truth of thought & actions, that which comes from a deeper place than institutions, that is my faith. That which rings true and clear in the hearts & minds of mankind, who we are, through our evolution, our ability to love, care, protect & learn and at the same time to hurt and destroy. We all make a choice and are free to choose, who we are, how we treat others, and we do so, and now more than ever this verse in the bible seem so poignant and meaningful as it is based on universal truth;

As in the Jonny Cash song "Listen to the words long written down"

He that is unjust, let him be unjust still and he which is filthy let him be filthy still and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still and he that is holy, let him be holy still

Listening to the words I then know that all is not lost, that there is hope, as there always is and always has been. As this has all happened before somewhere in the river of time and will undoubtedly happen again and we will fight to live, fight for life and we will not give up, as we have not given up before. As the generations before us have not given up, struggling to survive, to fight for life, light in the face of darkness of death and despair, hope always remains.

As I walk the streets I live for my daily exercise, I look around and I see the art of children written on walls in chalk, hanging in windows of coloured rainbows, messages of hope and thanks and they are the light, they are the innocent, the best of us, who grow into adults and are taught by humanity for humanity, learning to become doctors and nurses & research scientists & porters and cleaners and adults all around the country and the world. Who then work for themselves, for their individual families. Those who look after their own and then those who look after many. All of these actions together beat the darkness as they always have and always will do, as the eternal battle wages of dark against light, the light always wins.