Gaia's Calling Through Fires * Tour Travel Hotels
As the fires rage on America's West Coast, I sit here staring out my window and there are no more blue skies, puffy white clouds, or sunshine in sight. A few friends called it " surreal, " a word we may have used once or twice, while others used words like fate, sadness, depressing, scary, disturbing, and frightening.
As if we ain't already dealing with life 'new normal' in the midst of a global pandemic, we now have to stock up on extra masks and filters, but not just every time we enter a building, but every time we leave the house.
Newsweek writes that scattered fires produce " apocalypticWith hazy, red skies and the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Los Angeles has the worst air pollution in nearly three decades with "Ozone pollution that damages the lungs" on the rise.
CNN notes how quiet Trump has been since the latest fires raged along the West Coast, reminding us of his familiar response to blame the state's forest management.
As wildfires rage along the West Coast and destroy forests in its wake, we are now seeing entire neighborhoods and towns cremated with Oregon setting a gruesome record of over 3 million acres burnt this year. A friend sent me this photo of Oregon on Wednesday morning when the sky was pretty blood orange.
The streets of the neighborhood aren't the only thing charring - anything that sat or stood outside is now covered in a dark, hazy soot that doesn't come off easily. We waited two days before spraying statues, tables, cushions, chairs, lamps and birdhouses with water, only to find that we had to use rags with soap to remove the ashes that were starting to go deep into everything they touched. After wiping and hosing down our cars, two hours later the dark and ominous ashes were back.
The birds that come to our terrace daily to splash around in the Buddha fountains have not been seen for three days - it is as if every living creature that can still breathe is hiding, including humans. But what if you're a living creature with no sheltered, safe place to retreat when things get out of hand?
Firing from Washington or elsewhere for that matter cannot be a "new normal" - we cannot afford to be complacent at a time like this, whether or not you believe global warming is real. How many more "Real" do we need?
A friend texted us to try and shed some light on the situation by saying that he lay down on Earth and woke up on Mars. Although California is known to be foggy in the morning, it scorches at midday and is generally sunny most afternoons - the sun is pretty reliable in California and this is one of the main reasons we moved here.
The lightness of people's texts did not last long, however. The SF Chronicle title on Tuesday hit home: "Apocalypse in their minds: Bay Area pierced by a threatening sky, orange and smoky.
Depending on the time of day or where you were in the Bay Area, the sky looking at you was either a hazy cloudy peach color or a brilliant burnt orange and suddenly flickering. texts flew from friends from north to south, mainly using the word Apocalypse. I doubt they saw the title - it wasn't necessary to feel Gaia's sadness, react the only way she knows how to ... cleanse herself and correct himself.
When you put garbage in your body, what happens? You get sick and if you keep doing it it turns into illness and even death if you ignore it. Our guides like to say "When you eat from a box, you become a box." Well, the same is true of the planet and humanity has been abusing poor Gaia for quite some time now.
What would you do if you were her? After too much abuse, you would probably serve, right? Our planet has life, breath and Very real consciousness and its need to purge itself will only get worse unless we take care, remove reigns, and start respecting and nurturing it again. She is part of us and we are part of her, but unfortunately most of Washington does not understand. To be sure, the oil companies stuck with their profit-driven Amazon agenda don't get it either.
Purge of Gaia
When a living creature purges itself, it is a physical way to let you know something is wrong. You have eaten badly, your system is not aligned, or you have caught a bug and your body is doing all it knows how to fight it. The purge is one of them.
Gaia and her consciousness very alive has been trying to tell us something and has been for quite some time and it doesn't just manifest itself in fires. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: "A vortex of plastic debris in the north-central Pacific Ocean" about twice the size of Texas. And even that's just a small part of it: "At current rates, plastic is expected to trump all fish in the sea by 2050."
As Robert Koehler's article reports: Plastic pollution has a direct and fatal effect on wildlife. Thousands of seabirds and sea turtles, seals and other marine mammals are killed each year after ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic. . . . He continues to write: "You often find dead seabirds with stomachs full of plastic. And dead whales have been found with their bellies full of plastic. "
They are very real people. The planet is alive. In this article on climate change, Koehler shares the words of the Arhuaco people of northern Colombia: " When you go digging your fields or making a clay pot, you upset the balance of things. When you walk, you move air, inhale it and exhale it. Therefore, you have to make payments. "
In other words, as he says: by walking you disturb the balance of things, so walk slowly - live your life slowly - with awareness and gratitude. Writes Daniel Christian Wahl on Medium.com:
"Indigenous human cultures are the expression of generations of human co-evolution within the ecosystems they inhabit. Indigenous worldviews across the planet share a common perspective: the world is alive and meaningful, and our relationship with the rest of life is one of participation, communion and co-creation.
And in Why Nature Needs to Win, we are reminded that Sweden, for example, proposed a constitutional amendment giving nature the right to " exist, flourish, regenerate and evolve. And tribes and municipalities around the world are demanding legal recognition for endangered natural resources. "
Gaia and her need to purge herself to remind humanity that "enough is enough" isn't going away anytime soon.
We are after all, together. We need the planet and its oxygen, its fresh water and its air more than it needs us. If humanity is stupid and cruel enough to self-destruct through our own stupid ego-based decisions, Gaia will survive forever.
She will continue to purge as much as she needs, even if that means starting over. However, if we are smart we can systematically change the way things were done and, through a collective conscience, turn the corner and start feeding the planet again.
We can no longer treat nature and all that Gaia represents as something separate from human beings. If we just call a spade a spade and see how much we have been locked into our own loosely rooted ignorance, we can start over. With fresh eyes and through a unified, global effort, we can teach the next generation that nature is connected to us - Gaia feeds us and I'm not just talking about the crops we grow on the farms.
Think about what it feels like to sit on a mountain and gaze out into a clear blue sky, see an eagle hovering above you, ducks swimming beside you while you have lunch on the shores a lake or hear the waves crashing against the rocks of your favorite cliff overlooking the ocean.
His pulse and energy is beyond what we can even imagine, we have to listen to his heartbeat. We have to listen to his voice. And, we have to see this ongoing purge with serious eyes.
If we don't take its purges seriously, one morning we might wake up in more than a hazy orange sky and it might just be a nightmare we can't escape from. Hear the call, dear humans, hear the call.
