fire

6 a.m. Tuesday morning we awoke to this.

I stood on the deck for a long time. My brain could not register the reality. Oh no. Oh no.


After going about our normal routine for awhile it became apparent. Our forest was on fire.

I ran upstairs and began walking in circles. Disbelief.

What do you take with you when it's time to go forever?
What must stay, never to be seen again?

It was a true test of strength. I grounded and centered and asked the Goddess: Please show me what to do.

I walked to my car. It was packed up for recycling. Calmly I opened the back and threw the contents into the carport.

I went back upstairs and began to pack.

What do you take with you knowing it will be all that you have?
What must stay, never to be yours again?

My spinning wheel, and remaining fiber. Four skeins of sock yarn.
My tarot decks, Willendorf goddess, athame, journals, collage deck and collage journals.
The big box of pictures, thankfully organized into albums a few months back.
The birth certificates, marriage license, teaching credential, receipts for the appliances.
All my jewelry.
One third of my clothes.
One third of my toiletries.

Simplify, simplify.






I stuffed it all in the car. Grabbed the video camera and started recording the contents of our house. Commentating as tears ran fast: Here's our furniture. Here are the antiques. Here's our TV. Here's the living room, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the bath. Here's my clawfoot tub where our daughter was born.


Nd hitched up the trailer. Forty minutes of loading animals, chasing chickens and stuffing them into a cage. Grab a bail of hay. Go back in for the camera, the iPod, a radio, a flashlight.

What will go?
What must stay?

It was time. Our neighbor joined us in the caravan down the mountain. When could we return? What would we find?

Simplify, simplify. Pray and pray some more. Ground. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.