Fires, Extreme Heat, Suffering
Turning toward the trouble, rather than turning away, to find your right action
Greetings and love to everyone
It has been another painful month with the fires on Maui and now fires raging in British Columbia in Canada and a tropical storm in the Pacific.
NOTE: If you are being directly affected by these tragedies my heart and solidarity are with you and this post is probably not what you need right now. You need direct mutual aid, safe shelter, strong governmental action, communal support, and many other things I can’t know. But do comment below and let this community know how they can help.
If you are not directly affected by the current or recent fires and seeking ways into responding to these crises, I offer this post and set of practices.
To start, as always, a question: What are you finding helps you stay present with what is without becoming stuck in the feelings of fear or sadness or anger that naturally arise? What do you do when you don’t know what to do? Please feel free to comment and share with the community.
And together, let’s put the Livable Futures practices to work on the moment at hand.
Reminder: Four Practices to Support Resilience
I wrote a much longer post about this if you want it but for today, here are the four practices to help find peace while living in uncertain times: Arrive, Turn Toward, Re-Center/De-Center, Soften.
Arrive
Arrive, take time to breath and be with where you are and how you feel. Notice what you notice and let that inspire motion.
Putting the into action today:
As the Taoists say, the first action is non-action (this is also a tenet of injury recovery in dance and athletics). Take time now to be with however you are feeling. Draw your attention to any textures of sensation in your body (maybe tenderness in the chest? tension in the shoulders or jaw? Activity in the belly? Be with those sensations without adding any stories or interpretations, just feeling what you feel, noticing what you notice.
Listen for any impulse to move, big or small, and follow it.
Arrival example, I’ll do it with you, here we go:
Ok, I’m feeling a lot of tension in my shoulders, I’m just going to sit with this and breathe with it and notice the tension in my shoulder and how it is now shifting to my jaw, breathing and noticing and ARRIVING into presence with what is and Byron Katie’s wisdom surfaces in my awareness, “love what is” (read more here: https://thework.com/books/). Loving the sensations in my body, loving what is.
Breathing, I find I want to wiggle my shoulders a little and dip my head forward and I give myself that movement to ARRIVE.
Turn Toward
Turn, turn toward climate change or whatever fears you are avoiding at the moment, personal, political or both. Put your fear somewhere in space, turn toward it, and notice its contours.
Ok, here it is. This might feel like the hardest part and that’s ok and it can also be an incredible relief. Turning toward climate change, turning toward the fires on Maui and the horrible loss of life there and failure of the government systems to help keep people safe, turning toward the fires in British Columbia right now and all the fires that have been raging this summer. These extreme events can be signals to wake up, to pay attention, to get prepared, to take action.
Turn toward the fires and imagine them as a contained object that you can place in your space somewhere. As you face into your fear and feelings about the fires take time to be with those who are suffering.
Say this prayer, a buddhist prayer that has been adapted by many people in many ways:
May you feel safe, May you feel strong, May you feel compassion and your connection to all living things, and May you live with ease.
While you’re at it, say the same prayer for yourself.
Resource:
In the Livable Futures podcast, Alys Longley talks about the importance of being present with tragedies as they unfold in places that may be distant from us and the value of regular acknowledgement.
Turning toward example, doing the practice with you:
I picture the devastation on Maui and I hold them in my awareness, I picture the fires in Canada and hold them in my awareness, a picture a summer of heat and fires and climate change raging around us. I hold this is my awareness noticing that I can face the magnitudes, I place it outside my body in the corner of my bedroom looking at the fires at a short distance from me but staying with them.
I notice a strong desire in me to cool things down, to wash in cold water to send cooling thoughts out around me so I take some time to do so and say the prayer for myself and all those suffering, inventing my own little variation on the spot:
May you feel safe, May you feel strong, May you feel compassion and May you live with ease, May a cooling freshness wash over you of clean air and cold hydrating water and shade to give you strength.
Change your Center
Center, De-center, Re-center, around nourishing ideas, practices, people… who are the allies and ancestors showing up for you today? Where your focus goes, energy flows.
Now it is time to re-center, not around doom but also not around denial.
Online, in your social media feeds, in any media you are consuming, seek out and listen to what indigenous people of the regions are saying right now. Listen to women and other people of color and what they are saying. De-center white male voices in positions of power, whether they are, or you are correct or kind or good, for now, take whiteness out of the center and see what happens.
To help you get started, I’m finding it important to understand relationships between colonialism and climate change and appreciated this articles from Mother Jones on Maui: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/08/how-colonialism-contributed-to-the-maui-wildfires/
In the same vein, Native Hawaiians are asking folks to reconsider tourism in Hawaii: https://mymodernmet.com/lily-hiilani-okimura-hawaii-tourism/
Centering is also about where your resources are flowing. Research what organizations are receiving donations and check that they are supported by native peoples of the region. Listen for other requests for support that come in and pay attention.
Listen to the first episode of the Livable Futures podcast (recorded in 2020) where in Emalani Case, native Hawaiian scholar and artist, talks about connecting to where we are and developing powerful spiritual and political connections to place.
If you are on instagram, I’m finding @riseindigenous helpful right now.
Soften
Soften into Intention, breathe, release the tension in your muscles, act from there.
Breathe. Notice what you notice in your body now. Give yourself some movement and breath to help relieve tension. You might even try some of the somatic nervous system resets circulating widely on social media (a favorite of mine is a wiggle dance, just shake it all out, shake shake wiggle, move, sigh, even smile, make some noise, remember your suffering will not lesson the suffering of others).
No you are ready to sense what wants to be moved. What is your intention. How do you want to take action?
Write it down.
Thank yourself for that great work you’ve just done.
Take a break.
And when you are ready you will take right action.