Are We Listening? Are You Paying Attention? Wisdom of the California Fires

This morning I woke up to yet more news of fires ravaging the landscape in Northern California. Northen California and indeed the entire Pacific Coast is a place I love dearly. There is a feeling of freedom and lightness in the air, perhaps because of the ocean. I grew up going to Southern California to visit family, but when I got older I was attracted to Northern California. I worked on Pot Farms, marveled at the grandeur of the old redwoods and sequoias and I met kindhearted, earth-loving people (and plenty of crazy ones too).

 

It is devastating in so many ways that the force of fire increasingly ravages the landscapes of California. The fire burns homes to a crisp and displaces entire communities of both humans, wildlife, and trees. We are seeing a full scale cleansing.

 

[Photo Source]
 

I woke up and checked my Instagram feed. It is a cold morning on the homestead- the coldest night yet and after I read the post about the fire, I settled in to make a fire in the cabin to warm up the place. As the poem I am about to share so brilliantly conveys, fire is a friend and, in excess, one of the deadliest foes. Yet instead of pitting fire as the “bad guy,” what if we dig a bit deeper and look at the message fire is bringing.

 

Great Fire, We see you. We bow before your power Your majestic roar of life transforming Everything we thought so solid & sure Into dust. Great Fire, We honor you. Master agent of Transformation You teach us True Radical Release. Not the wishy washy letting go of some comforts & conveniences, no. Us humans. With all our habits. Raw coconut water in plastic bottles, << Oh but I recycle! >> No. Not enough. True Radical Release. Great Fire, great modeling of this. When we evacuate We realize how little needs to come with How no thing really matters. When our houses burn We are left with no thing We are left so… Alive. We let go. All that has been lost. It is quiet. We realize. Being together is all our hearts want. And all our business burns away. Us humans, so important is our doing Until there’s nothing to do but Be in it. Great Fire, You’ll come teach us Until we learn. “We can’t solve the problems With the same kind of thinking we used When we created them.” (Einstein) So wipe our minds clean To dust. Let the Ash inside of us feed Dormant seeds from long ago. Let us remember. Let us pause. Let us not be so hasty to “rebuild!” If we build it this way It will burn again. What does it mean To start A New? Regenerate.

 

 

Poem by the Gaia School of Healing in California. You can check out there website here.

 

 

What most touched me about this poem is the deep reaching respect the author has toward fire. The admission that the way things had been carrying on would no longer work. The truth that the fire is a message, a wake up call.

 

It is beyond devastating to see destruction on this level. It is even more devastating to think that the clinging of humans (to not let forest fires burn naturally, for example, as is their regenerative cycle and which would actually prevent the fuel accumulated leading to large scale fires of this sort) led to this. Their insistency to not pay attention or realize something needed to change.

 

“We can’t solve the problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” - Einstein

 

When Ini and I looked around for a place to call home to create our land-based, long term dreams, of course we wanted to move to cool and hip places like California, replete with likeminded people to form community with. Yet the proximity to huge population centers, lack of water, prevalence of fires, and inflated land and living expenses, ultimately kept us searching.

 

When my parents said they were going to move to Naples, Florida I had a similar reaction. Why move to a place that is notorious for getting hit with natural disasters? Why move to a place that could be under water within our lifetimes with rising sea levels? The year they moved there Hurricane Irma hit and they evacuated from their home. It was a crazy situation, but surely we all saw it coming. Even now the Atlantic coast of Florida just underwent another crazy natural disaster and many lost everything.

 

Are We Listening?

 

These types of things aren’t going to slow down. Weather patterns are erratic, it’s getting colder when it’s cold and hotter when it’s hot and sometimes cold when it should be hot and vice versa. Are we paying attention?

Photo by Noah Berger

 

When I asked my dad how they could live in a place that may not be there when his grandkids reach maturity he laughed and said that he would be gone so it wouldn’t matter. I don’t mean to throw my dad under the bus – he takes everything with a good dose of humor and I know that he would do anything for me and his family– but the truth is that many humans are still perceiving things this way. We, as a species, are thinking about our individual lives and not about the long term repercussions of our lifestyles and actions.

 

It doesn’t matter because it won’t matter for me.

 

This isn’t 7 Generations Thinking.

 

Deep in my heart I feel a surge to think 7 generations into the future and align my actions with the wellbeing of those who will come after me. Are my actions creating a better world or simply going along with the destructive flow?

 

We need to start thinking differently and choosing actions that have different results. I’m not saying no one can have any fun (and why is it that that’s how people immediately react, like to align our actions with the health of future generations is a kill-joy?), but that we need to take a good look at the course we’re on and change directions.

 

A mentor and guide for me in this time is consistently Joanna Macy. I’ve mentioned her books before. In this passage below she is questioning on of her teachers, Choegyal, about the Shambhala warriors in the prophecy.

 

 

“So in this time, the Shambhala warriors go into training. When Choegyal said this, Joanna asked, “How do they train?” They train, he said, in the use of two weapons. “What weapons?” And he held up his hands in the way the lamas hold the ritual objects of dorje and bell in the lama dance.

 

The weapons are compassion and insight. Both are necessary, he said. You have to have compassion because it gives you the juice, the power, the passion to move. It means not to be afraid of the pain of the world. Then you can open to it, step forward, act. But that weapon by itself is not enough. It can burn you out, so you need the other- you need insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. With that wisdom you know that it is not a battle between “good guys” and “bad guys,” because the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. With insight into our profound interrelatedness- our deep ecology- you know that actions undertaken with pure intent have repercussions throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern. By itself, that insight may appear too cool, too conceptual, to sustain you and keep you moving, so you need the heart of compassion. Together these two can sustain us as agents of wholesome change. They are gifts for us to claim now in the healing of our world.” (pg 61 Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy)

 

Eyes of Wisdom

 

During these trying times, we must pay attention to what is before us. We are being given signs from every angle and truly life cannot go on as normal, as it has been going on for so so long. We must make a shift. Maybe, as my dad says, it doesn’t matter – Ice Ages and other full scale, sweeping clean catastrophes have happened many times over and this is just another catastrophic epoch. Yet, that urging deep in my heart, that compassion, combined with the insight of interrelatedness, even with those generations who are not born yet, who will come after me, tells me differently. It does matter and it’s for this reason that we’ve come into these times.

 

I feel like I share it all the time, but here are some key lines from the Hopi Elder’s prophecy, fitting for a closing statement.

 

Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water?

Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

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