How intense Shaun! It must be really surreal to have just arrived in LA a few weeks ago to build your life there, while everything around you is being destroyed. What a contradiction, also emotionally. It is good to read that you are safe, even though you are, as you yourself put it, "not OK". I can imagine your fear and uncertainty. As well as the collective shock and grief that you see around you. The individual and collective suffering that is caused is incomprehensible.
A few years ago we had a similar situation in my country The Netherlands, but then with a massive flooding of a province with a large river running through it. In Europe we also have enormous forest fires and floods every year. And unfortunately it is getting worse every year. Strangely enough, this misery haunted my family last year. During the summer holidays we were in Northern Portugal where enormous forest fires also destroyed hectares of forest of this beautiful country and people's homes. Fortunately, we went home just a few days before it started. And during the autumn holidays we were on the Spanish islands of Ibiza and Formentera where above the islands drifted the DANA weather conditions that ravaged the Spanish mainland so much at that time. The weather phenomenon DANA caused an unstable atmosphere, floods, waterspouts and heavy rainfall. It was the biggest flood of the last century in Spain!
These natural disasters have come so close and unfortunately have almost become normal. And fortunately my family itself did not become a direct victim of it. But many others did.
It makes us humans humble when mother earth shows her intense power. And on a meta level it is actually mother earth that is striking back and is in dire straits because of all the climate change, destruction of nature and of her ecosystems. She is also suffering. It is sometimes difficult to (continue to) realize that in the midst of all the human suffering. This, while in essence Mother Earth and we humans are one and the same system. Hopefully, once all the fires have stopped and all the human wounds (physical, financial, emotional and mental) have healed, that interdependence and care will be remembered and acted upon.
Good that you yourself help the people around you in this way! Take care of yourself. And let others also help you.
I saw your light green nail polish 💅 in your Instagram stories as a form of self-care. A party on the nails of your helping hands, so to speak. 😉 A form of lightness in these dark weeks.
You and the Angelenos are in my thoughts!
Lots of strength there in the coming time. Be safe!
Thank you for offering meaningful ways to help as so many of us far from LA feel helpless to contribute. My thoughts continue to be with everyone affected. I think it's important to keep talking about this long into the future after the fires are extinguished. Many places affected by disaster feel forgotten after the next news cycle, but as you said, it's a marathon and a relay race, and healing takes a very long time.
Feel this. I signed a lease 2 days before the fires ironically and luckily. Excited to be here still. Also was nomadic so was able to pack everything in 2 suitcases to leave my sublet.
How intense Shaun! It must be really surreal to have just arrived in LA a few weeks ago to build your life there, while everything around you is being destroyed. What a contradiction, also emotionally. It is good to read that you are safe, even though you are, as you yourself put it, "not OK". I can imagine your fear and uncertainty. As well as the collective shock and grief that you see around you. The individual and collective suffering that is caused is incomprehensible.
A few years ago we had a similar situation in my country The Netherlands, but then with a massive flooding of a province with a large river running through it. In Europe we also have enormous forest fires and floods every year. And unfortunately it is getting worse every year. Strangely enough, this misery haunted my family last year. During the summer holidays we were in Northern Portugal where enormous forest fires also destroyed hectares of forest of this beautiful country and people's homes. Fortunately, we went home just a few days before it started. And during the autumn holidays we were on the Spanish islands of Ibiza and Formentera where above the islands drifted the DANA weather conditions that ravaged the Spanish mainland so much at that time. The weather phenomenon DANA caused an unstable atmosphere, floods, waterspouts and heavy rainfall. It was the biggest flood of the last century in Spain!
These natural disasters have come so close and unfortunately have almost become normal. And fortunately my family itself did not become a direct victim of it. But many others did.
It makes us humans humble when mother earth shows her intense power. And on a meta level it is actually mother earth that is striking back and is in dire straits because of all the climate change, destruction of nature and of her ecosystems. She is also suffering. It is sometimes difficult to (continue to) realize that in the midst of all the human suffering. This, while in essence Mother Earth and we humans are one and the same system. Hopefully, once all the fires have stopped and all the human wounds (physical, financial, emotional and mental) have healed, that interdependence and care will be remembered and acted upon.
Good that you yourself help the people around you in this way! Take care of yourself. And let others also help you.
I saw your light green nail polish 💅 in your Instagram stories as a form of self-care. A party on the nails of your helping hands, so to speak. 😉 A form of lightness in these dark weeks.
You and the Angelenos are in my thoughts!
Lots of strength there in the coming time. Be safe!
Thank you for offering meaningful ways to help as so many of us far from LA feel helpless to contribute. My thoughts continue to be with everyone affected. I think it's important to keep talking about this long into the future after the fires are extinguished. Many places affected by disaster feel forgotten after the next news cycle, but as you said, it's a marathon and a relay race, and healing takes a very long time.
Feel this. I signed a lease 2 days before the fires ironically and luckily. Excited to be here still. Also was nomadic so was able to pack everything in 2 suitcases to leave my sublet.