Update on my life: one very eventful week to ten days
First off: personally, I'm fine firewise. Nowhere near any of the firelines this time round.
In 2003 my home was at one point five miles from an active fire, and that was pretty damn unnerving--skies all orange and black, air that you could feel messing with your lungs, and the thought that your house was close enough to get it from a cinder on a nice stiff gust of Santa Ana. So this time round, even knowing that I personally was safe, I was on edge for all the people not safe, caught in the path of that unpredictable ... phenomenon.
Calling it a fire is inadequate, somehow. And "force of nature" isn't quite right either--and not only because at least a couple of the blazes were apparently set. One thing's for certain, the damn things do seem to take on a life of their own--and as inevitably as its fellow element water seeks its own level, a wildfire seems to home in on all our habitat's most vulnerable points, both natural and human-created.
And woven in amongst such heavy community happenings, and thus destined to be forever after colored by them in my memories, were several personal events of great meaning and joy.
Deep quality time with a new person in my life ... the beautiful love-in of a woman's retreat I attended just before the firestorms started ... dressing up and hitting the streets to observe that great queer tradition of Halloween masquerade, despite all the fires ... re-owning my clerical self by robing and processing in my new minister's installation last night. So many wildly different facets of my life, all converging on this one stretch of ten days ...
The personal often goes on in spite of, or even in defiance of, the moments when the world gets a little too much like a disaster movie for comfort. And thank Goddess for that.
(And Goddess protect all those threatened by the fires.)
In 2003 my home was at one point five miles from an active fire, and that was pretty damn unnerving--skies all orange and black, air that you could feel messing with your lungs, and the thought that your house was close enough to get it from a cinder on a nice stiff gust of Santa Ana. So this time round, even knowing that I personally was safe, I was on edge for all the people not safe, caught in the path of that unpredictable ... phenomenon.
Calling it a fire is inadequate, somehow. And "force of nature" isn't quite right either--and not only because at least a couple of the blazes were apparently set. One thing's for certain, the damn things do seem to take on a life of their own--and as inevitably as its fellow element water seeks its own level, a wildfire seems to home in on all our habitat's most vulnerable points, both natural and human-created.
And woven in amongst such heavy community happenings, and thus destined to be forever after colored by them in my memories, were several personal events of great meaning and joy.
Deep quality time with a new person in my life ... the beautiful love-in of a woman's retreat I attended just before the firestorms started ... dressing up and hitting the streets to observe that great queer tradition of Halloween masquerade, despite all the fires ... re-owning my clerical self by robing and processing in my new minister's installation last night. So many wildly different facets of my life, all converging on this one stretch of ten days ...
The personal often goes on in spite of, or even in defiance of, the moments when the world gets a little too much like a disaster movie for comfort. And thank Goddess for that.
(And Goddess protect all those threatened by the fires.)