"To My Fellow West Coast Inhabitants" – in response to Wildfires

To my fellow West Coast inhabitants, and in fact to all peoples and beings,

I’d just like to say, that I believe grief to be a healthy and righteous response to the ongoing reality of living with catastrophic wildfires. I grieve for the loss of human and non-human life, for loss of homes and habitat, for loss of security and confidence in the future. I grieve for our collective ecological ignorance, exploitation and self-created exile.

Joanna Macy, whom I regard as one of the great teachers of our time, has said: “Our grief for the state of the world is only the other side of our love for the world.” I will try and try again to let that sink in and be embodied.

I hope to let my grief be what it is, without expectation for it to be transformational or useful. I think it is ok to “just” feel sad, lost, angry, and everything in between. This land is our body, and we burn with it. These beings are our kin and we die with them. Our sense of separateness is the delusion that created this mess. Turning away from difficult feelings is turning away from the true state of things – it is how and why this shit keeps escalating. So I let my heart break now, as it has broken many times, as it will break many times again. And I give thanks that I continue to live, and that there is still time to change our ways.