Et les gens restèrent chez eux – Kitty O’Meara

 

PAR JADE · PUBLIÉ 19 MARS 2020 · MIS À JOUR 19 MARS 2020

Et les gens restèrent chez eux

Et les gens restèrent chez eux. Ils lurent des livres, écoutèrent, se reposèrent, firent de l’exercice, firent de l’art, jouèrent à des jeux et apprirent de nouvelles façons d’être.

Et ils écoutèrent davantage.

Certains méditaient, d’autres priaient, d’autres encore dansaient.

D’autres rencontrèrent leurs ombres.

Et les gens se mirent à penser différemment.

Et les gens guérirent.

Et, en l’absence de personnes ignorantes, dangereuses, insensées et sans coeur, la terre commença à cicatriser.

Et quand le danger fut passé, et que les gens se rassemblèrent à nouveau, ils pleurèrent leurs pertes, firent de nouveaux choix, rêvèrent de nouvelles images, et créèrent de nouvelles façons de vivre et de guérir la terre pleinement, comme ils furent guéris.

– Kitty O’Meara

 

Ce texte court sur le net depuis quelques jours et il est mentionné qu'il date de 1839. Il y a bien eu une Kathleen O'Meara née à Dubin en 1839, mais elle n'a pas écrit ça ! 



Ce poème est contemporain, et l'oeuvre d'une Kitty O'Meara bien vivante. Ce petit texte est devenu viral mais l'auteure est discrète au point que de faux comptes Instagram à son nom ont vu le jour. La pauvre...



https://www.oprahmag.com/.../and-the-people-stayed-home.../
 

• Kitty O'Meara's prose poem inspired by the coronavirus pandemic—which begins with the line, "And the people stayed home," is going viral.
• The poem has inspired thousands of posts on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
• But who is Kitty O'Meara, the mysterious author of this work that has so deeply resonated with people? We spoke to O'Meara herself, and got some answers.

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Kitty O'Meara is the poet laureate of the pandemic. Her untitled prose poem, which begins with the line, "And the people stayed home," has been shared countless times, on countless backgrounds, with countless fonts, since its first posting. It was most widely popularized by Deepak Chopra, and has since been shared by everyone from Bella Hadid to radio stations in Australia. The poem has become shorthand for a silver-linings perspective during the coronavirus outbreak—the hope that something good can come out of this collective state of "together, apart."

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The poem begins with the evocative line: "And the people stayed home," and goes on to describe an idyllic version of the months to come. Through O'Meara's lens, the era of social distancing could be taken up by purposeful activity like meditation, exercise, and dancing, and result in a kind of global healing.

The poem reads like a cross between a proverb, Instagram poem, and, if you're feeling optimistic, psychic prediction.

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

It's obvious why this meditative poem has resonated so deeply with people: It inserts the idea of individual agency back into something out of our control, and imagines that the time after this will not only exist—it'll be better than before.

Instead, the major mystery has become the identity of its mysterious author, a woman whose online presence boils down to a blog, a Facebook page, and lots of people asking: Who is Kitty O'Meara?