The Deceiver's Delight | Catherine Viel

By Catherine Viel, July 1, 2021

(Golden Age of Gaia)

June 30, 2021

He looks into my truthful face
Beneath the rising moon,
And on his balalaika
He plays a lying tune.
~Helen Muckley, The Deceiver

Deception can hide anywhere.



I am a walking example of it, as I glide through the store and make purchases and chat with other customers or employees. I am deceiving everyone because I wear no mask but I have no vax. My Revolutionary gene rejoices at this small and completely safe kind of rebellion. At least in California, I’m unlikely to be hauled off to the hoosegow if my infraction is discovered.

I feel a deep level of sadness with this mask or no mask, vaccine or no vaccine issue. I feel it’s compelling me to look at others and immediately check, are they wearing a mask? Does that mean they’re unvaccinated, like me?



And if they are free-faced, are they nonetheless unvaccinated, but demurely lying through omission, like me?

This conundrum has effectively muzzled my propensity to talk to all and sundry about how dangerous the vaccines are, because if I start spouting off through my unmasked mouth, the question might arise, “Where’s your mask, if you’re unvaccinated? You’re supposed to be wearing one.”

*****

It’s more than a little creepy to even have such conversations with strangers at the store. How intrusive. And yet, given the deliberate division of much of humanity into vaxxed-or-not, masked-or-not, the level of interest may be inescapable.



I feel as if we’re being set up to become traitors to ourselves and each other. To abandon the standards and practices of decency and decorum that help keep civilization, civil. To rat out a neighbor or coworker to the Vax Police.

It seems very unlikely it will go that far. It seems unlikely that anyone really cares enough, or is bothered enough, to snoop into acquaintances’ or coworkers’ vax status.

But I don’t know how far the drilled-down level of fear, mostly unconscious, runs in my fellow humans. Perhaps it would seem entirely reasonable, entirely righteous, to not only spy on others’ health status, but report it to “authorities.”

It seems very unlikely. But much of the last year-plus, including the stolen American election, seemed “very unlikely” to begin with. Yet here we are.

*****

This is yet another of those dilemmas with no practical, real-world solution, at least that I can see. Certainly there’s nothing I can do about it on a large or even medium scale.



Which leaves the inner solution. Coming to peace with how I react to others with and without masks, the assumptions I make about their vax status, my reaction to the assumptions they may make about me—it’s all inner work.

I don’t have a real goal with this. I reach for a moment-to-moment state of awareness, endeavoring to catch the reflexive mind-chatter before it sneaks in. To replace it with a mantra of kindness, inclusiveness, unity, to pour over the divisiveness that is being smeared on us with lavish hand by those who would control us.

I strive to stand for the human right to privacy and sovereignty (especially regarding our health information), even if it’s only in my own mind, my own perception of myself, others, and the world.

It’s a start. And didn’t the mighty oak grow from the tiny, negligible acorn?

There’s an oak within this acorn and I will nurture its mightiness with all that I can muster.