scene of mass execution of the Dakota 38
My son told me to watch the film Dakota 38 and I’d never heard about it. In case you haven’t heard of it either, the film documents the fulfillment of Dakota Sioux Native Jim Miller’s dream. Jim tried to deny his dream because of its power. Continue reading “reconciliation” »
how can you tell people lived here?
I called my husband from HWY 101 and told him I couldn’t see much of Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park fire damage. He reminded me that a freeway is like ‘a river,’ so we only see the ‘banks’ when we drive. Continue reading “remains” »
everything vibrates
‘Sound healing’ is a practical type of therapy with information available to us online. Years ago, I attended a workshop, and I believe it helped me heal some deeply painful emotions. Continue reading “sound therapy” »
nightmare on the horizon
Yes, the Coffey Park fire, known as the Tubbs Fire continues burning after a week, and is half-way contained. My brother-in–law and his wife survived the fire because a neighbor called, giving them ten minutes. Evacuating their neighborhood subdivision took over an hour, and another hour to get to a two-lane road headed west. There were so many cars and only one road. Trees were smashing around them, and blocking other exits. There was no emergency infrastructure. They spent the rest of the night in a parking lot miles away, glad to be alive.
“It’s purification,” he told me on the phone two days ago, the first time we talked. It’s all gone, and he’s well aware his life is forever changed. Starting over as a senior…..
I was impressed by his positive attitude, grateful to his neighbor for calling to tell him to evacuate. If he hadn’t called, it would have been too late to leave. Thank you for caring enough to save lives!
Having been evacuated before, I understand ‘get out,’ and leaving stuff, when it comes to life and death. No question, lives matter more. Fear mixes with smoke. There nothing to describe racing away from home with the possibility your home will never be there again. What’s in the unknown?
My husband and I didn’t lose everything in the Butte Fire two years ago. However, it doesn’t take long to forget how lucky we are to survive a horrific fire like that. A second fire in West Point occurred three days ago, burning 250 acres in the downtown area. Four homes were lost. CALFIRE notified with a ‘robocall,’ if you signed up for notification. Too bad for you if you didn’t sign up. It happened really fast. The firefighters won that time.
If the wind hadn’t changed direction, we’d be toast for sure. We were spared. So lucky, again. Deja Vu.
What can we do to help? A friend of mine and her friend took positive action, and started californiafirehelp.com. Artists and designers are donating items and 100% of the proceeds got to help California fire victims.
Rebuilding efforts will take years, so thousands of people are reconsidering their life priorities. Do they want to return to a neighborhood after fire’s toxic waste is removed? Cleanup’s a major job. Meanwhile changes won’t happen overnight. Fire is everlasting.
My home stands today, my brother in-laws does not. We will never know why. Random winds change so many lives. California still burns, and we learn to cope.
we can’t find their house in a fire of this proportion
My brother in -law and his wife have likely lost their home in today’s northern California fire. They were evacuated with fifteen minutes to spare, and drove in nightmare conditions in the middle of the night, to get out of their Santa Rosa subdivision. Burning embers on the street, flames skipping across lawns, and remains of other people’s homes in the 110, 000 + acres explode into the night sky like a nuclear bomb. Continue reading “Coffey Park fire” »
what to do with stuff?
In this dream, neighbor Larry Smith sits in a lawn chair placing mechanical parts into groups and waiting for instructions of what to make from the parts. He organizes piles of car pipes and plumbing couplings, large and small bolts and several types of wrenches. Larry’s face reminds me of my family and friends. He earnestly looks around, wishing aloud that he’d found instructions to build something from the collected things. Continue reading “no answers but dreams can lead the way” »
a red blackberry is green
West Point is a small hamlet in the central Sierra mountain range. Scout Kit Carson was said to have named the place because it’s the most western portion of two forks of the Mokelumne river, the watershed for Contra Costa County in the east bay area. Continue reading “elegy of a blackberry” »
love lavender
I dreamt I was in a rehab, no particular type. I sat in a chair with a binder full of notes, going through what to keep and toss. Continue reading “Behaving like an adult” »
Wendy Wall wrote and sang I Woke Up Dreaming, describing dream connections to waking life. Her song lyrics melody respect dreams as another aspect of our waking reality. Continue reading “Wendy woke up dreaming” »
we are stardust
“How are you today?”
Easy to ask, but hard to answer. It depends upon who’s asking, and how far we want to go with someone else. I’ve lived with extreme depression on a personal level and with my relatives. Self-medicating is one way to ease the pain. It’s not a great solution, but research shows most people turn to self-medicating first. Continue reading “Is it going?” »