A Response to the Wildfires in Boulder, CO

Last week while driving Hazel home from school I was startled to see a plume of smoke rising up from what looked like our backyard. I called 911 to report it, they were aware. As I got closer to home I realized that indeed the fire was a stone's throw away from our home. I called Rachael to let her know and so she could join me in the pack-up.

It's not the first time we've done the runaround. Gathering irreplacable items. An heirloom Martin guitar. Photo albums from before the digital age. Art. All while doing our best to tend the impressionable nervous systems of our young children.

Once the cars were loaded I went about restarting our recently winterized sprinkler system to get everything around the house as wet as possible while Rachael sang prayer songs with the kids.

Then we wait, either for an official evacutation notice, or for an "all clear."

Wildfires are a reality of living in Colorado. It seems increasingly so over the course of the decade since we've lived here. Fortunately, we never felt ourselves in immediate danger. There's usually fair warning.

This wasn't true for the threats of my childhood. I Iived in Israel from the ages of ten to sixteen. The threat of a terrorist attack or even war was ever present and woven into day to day life. This reality creates a certain culture and orientation to living. An intensity for sure. But a lot of that intensity is about getting most out of life.

Somehow the constant threat makes everyone aware that each moment is precious, connection with people you love matters, there's no reason to hold back passion, and no need to sweat the small stuff.

I'm not trying to paint some idyllic picture of a culture that has figured it out, but I do believe a good word do describe Israeli culture is Vivacious and that's a quality I strive to embody.

What I'm attempting to do is weave lessons from the stressful realities of my past into the present.

Because, I tend talk a lot about gentleness and softness and the need to slow down... But, I also believe in the value and importance of grabbing life by the horns.

Sometimes we need deep rest and softness for rejuvenation, and other times we need to reach into our bones to feel the pulsing life in our marrow and remember the profound resilience we come from. We need to get excited and engaged.

Regardless of who we are, there's a good chance our ancestors faced famine, disease, war, and strife that our sheltered modern lives would find it difficult to imagine, much less endure.

And while it may be true that some of the negative consequences of living through such times have come down through our genetics and inherited behaviors, we can be sure that the strength required to endure such experiences also lives within us.

Now, in a first draft of this email I shied away from sharing the intensity of the experience. Rachael, my editor, kindly and lovingly called me out.

I sat with that. My sense is this was largely an expression of my entrainment to be a Man. A Man handles intense situations and is "fine" afterwards. My initial internal response to Rachael naming the intensity was, "that wasn't intense, what are you talking about?" Umm... hello? There was a wildfire walking distance from my home...

As I felt into the memory of the experience, there was a great deal of charge in my body. I remember myself frantically running around doing everything I could to save our home with an underlying doubt as to whether anything I was doing would make any difference. And yet running frantically was exactly what my nervous system needed to avoid overload, and doing something, anything really, empowered me with a sense of agency despite my doubts.

And here we have an opportunity to dive deeper into something big affecting us all. Climate change, and "biospheric uncertainty" create an ongoing low level sense of threat that's impacting us all in subtle and substantial ways. I mean lets be real, the world is kind of a shitshow right now and events like this wildfire are more common and more looming than ever.

Fortunately, we also have resources.

For instance our dear friend and colleague, Eva Jahn, is offering an 8 week in-person support group for folks who experience climate distress, such as existential dread, eco anxiety (fear of environmental doom), climate anxiety, rage, sleeplessness, irritability, and other complex feelings around loss, grief, dependency and guilt for losses that have already occurred and those that are to come. It's a group that will include earth-body-and compassion based contemplative practices, teachings about our nervous system and other coping tools and group process.

And for those more keen on one-on-one support acupuncture and/or therapy are really great spaces to process and release the intense charges we experience from the intense world we live in.

And if you're looking for a resource to work with yourself, I  highly recommend The Somatic Therapy Workbook by Livia Shapiro, another dear friend.

And so dear friends, maybe we can lean into the feirceness needed to for intense moments without forgoing our gentle sides. Lets explore how the spark of life within us, evokes a bright love the drives us to create and to connect with the world around us, and to survive.

What if we tap into loud boistrous belly laughs, intensely firm and loving hugs, and moans and groans of delight from the delicious flavors of the foods we're eating?

What if these Wild Fires beckon us to reclaim our wildness and stoke the fires of passion in our hearts for living an immense and meaningful life in whatever small way we can?

With Heart,

Noah