Hurricane Helene

Today I would be going to the Southeast Fiber Festival with my daughter.  We go every year. We look at the wool, the felting projects, and the Angora rabbits.  We gawk at the Jacob sheep’s horns.  If you have never seen them, then quickly look them up.  They are amazing. We sometimes enroll in spinning classes, but most of the time, we just walk around having a blast. 

 

The festival has been canceled this year, and it is just another source of heartbreak for me.  Just over three weeks ago, Tropical Storm Helene came through my area, Asheville, NC, and wreaked havoc. Souls were lost, homes washed away, sections of town leveled with torrents of thick, muddy river water, and the public water systems destroyed.  Currently, there are still pockets of the community that do not have power, our water system is not up and running with safe water, and our internet is still out. 

 

The effects of the storm left me disoriented as we worked to find a new normal.  Our family came together to create our system.  We boiled our drinking water from the rain catchment system on our Solo Stove, which, despite what the company says, produced smoke to add a dash of flavor.  It quickly became a joke, “Yummm, smokey water.”  We pulled water for our toilets from the tiny creek at the back of our property, and we pulled out our camping stoves.  The garden was fortunately still producing fresh veggies, and our chickens were laying just fine.  Our community pulled together to help each other.  Friends gave us firewood and a gas canister since we were running low.  We helped cut trees out of driveways, gave out eggs and veggies, and all shared the bits of information that we knew in attempts to cobble together a complete picture of what was happening.

 Through all of this, I felt like I had my feet on the ground and had clarity about what needed to happen.  Yes, there were moments when I cried as I kept turning toward the devastation. But, when it was time for me to go to the woods to seek help in balancing myself, I couldn’t.  The road in was washed away. Once that got repaired to the point of being drivable, when I arrived at the trailhead, there was no way in.  Tree after tree was down, blocking access into the forest.  The grand old mother white oak tree, the one who greeted me every time I entered, was gone too.  I sat down and wept. 

 For me, this forest was my church.  It was my sacred place where I went to commune with the life within the natural world.  It helped me find my footing on this uncertain path in life.  It was my source of inspiration.  It was the place where my dogs could be dogs and run.  It reminded me of out innate capacities of reverence, humility, compassion, fierceness, clarity, and empathy. It held me in my sorrow after my father died and celebrated with me in the Spring when new life came.  It reminded me that I am just one being in this vastly interconnected web of life. 

 At one time, no one knew about this place. There were just a couple of us who walked in the morning. We would run into each other, share our worlds, and then be on our way.  During the COVID lockdown, this place was discovered.  I was glad that people had a place to go to find respite from the troubles in the world.  But then I began to notice, on the trails, more and more trash, saplings on the side of the trail snapped, and new trails cut in that lead to erosion. 

I would stop and wonder, do people do this to a church?  Do people throw their trash at the feet of the image of Jesus or Mother Mary?  Do people cut down the pews because they are in their way?  I guess during wartime, churches are pillaged and ruined…


I think about humans and their relationship to the natural world.  I think about the ways we have used nature for our gains and the ways we leave it when we are done.  I have often wondered if Mother Earth gets tired of giving.  When I look at my sacred woods, it is not hard to see that she does get tired.  It is not lost on me that the type of destruction that occurred in my area (and our area is not an isolated incident) has intensified because of how human’s treat Earth.  That once again, humans have “littered” and this time, extensive damage was incurred.  One of my trainings, which I am steeped in, is a variation on awareness practices.  It is about the ability to be affected and to know you are being affected.  Instead of numbing out, writing this trail off, I sat in the woods and allowed myself to be affected.  It is only through this work that we discover the creative action soul longs for us to do.   Contemplating this, I found myself sliding into despair that was infused with anger and sorrow.  Joanna Macy then popped into my mind.  For those who do not know Joanna Macy, she is one of the great elders in the environmental/ecopsychology world.  Her book Active Hope was all I needed for a direction, my next best step.

She states:

Active Hope is not wishful thinking.

Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued . . . 

by some savior.

Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life

on whose behalf we can act.

We belong to this world.

The web of life is calling us forth at this time.

We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part.

With Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store,

strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.

Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths

in ourselves and in others;

a readiness to discover the reasons for hope

and the occasions for love.

A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts,

our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose,

our own authority, our love for life, the liveliness of our curiosity,

the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence,

the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.

None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk.

― Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone, Active Hope:How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy

 

In the spirit of Joanna, I pose these questions she wrote to you…

1)    When I think about the condition of the world, I would say things are getting _____.

2)    Some concerns I have include ______.

3)    The feelings that come up when I consider these are _____.

4)    What I do with these feelings is ______.

 

Allow yourself to fully surrender yourself to what emerges with these questions.  This is just for your private writing, no one else has to know what you write.  But let your response guide your next step.  Stay diligent with your response.  Mother Earth and Humanity desperately need your soul’s creative action.

 

 

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Remembering Childhood Essence