When it all falls away, what really matters? We are human. We all have drama in our lives. The complexity of relationships. Many families tell me how since entire extended families were displaced, there is an openness right now in the shared experience. Old wounds are healing.
The collective here feels it too. An ‘all hands on deck’ that returns us to our shared humanity. The fire has burned away more than homes. The fire has burned away resentments, divisions, dramas and returned us to what truly matters.
Many of the families I’m supporting laugh at the irony, and reflect on the opportunity to, as they say, tell their family members “none of that matters now, we’re all in this together.” In the midst of so much loss, the ability to gain perspective, to find the silver lining, is grounding. The loss of their homes was hard enough, but without available housing, the long term displacement of being crammed in hotel rooms unable to cook the food that says home, to let your children play, to know when you’ll be settled again, is a pervasive challenge for the nervous system. So there is some hope available when we open to mending and tending our broken relationships.
We are who we are. We’re not talking changing essential characters. But they are finding the possibility when we embrace with open arms, remembering we are family.
I can’t help but extend this out as a possibility for us all. Do we really need a shared disaster to remember. Do we really need it all to fall away or can we come together now? There are so many spaces in a day where we can let this guide us.
I’m working on expanding into this. I never thought I’d be filling so many envelopes with my children, sharing tangible love and resource with so many. Though my list of those waiting grows and I can move into moments of scarcity honed in childhood, I’m trying to hold the abundance and generosity that has been showered upon us as the real truth. I have the children help me because I want them to think of this abundant response to need as normal. To know WE ARE ALL FAMILY.
We are swimming in systems that disconnect us, that separate and incite us to compete against each other. That divide. Our ancestral ways remind us that the land, family, Creator and connection are all we need. We draw a heart on the envelopes because this is where this truth resides and where the healing is. May we all remember what is most important. Somos familia💗