Here in Northern California the wildfires continue to rage. Talk about Mother Nature having the last word — nothing could be more obvious as over 77,000 square acres of land have burned the last week.
Many people have written me asking how I am doing. I am okay and blessed but neighbors have lost their electricity and of course hundreds of people have lost their homes and/or businesses and hundreds of thousands are displaced and living in shelters and millions have had their electricity shut off. At least so far, unlike last year’s blaze, no humans have been killed—though plenty of animals and birds and their habitats have been destroyed.
When the BP oil rig blasted open in 2010 and burned spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico for months, the Yang corporate voraciousness for energy was in direct conflict with the Yin waters of the Gulf. Today’s goings-on appear very similar.
Fire is yang energy as are oil corporations and electrical corporations like our local PG&E that seems to be responsible for this fire as it was for the deadly one last year.
This latest conflagration is—still again—a Wake Up Call.
–A wake up call about not to take healthy air for granted—though not in harm’s way directly from the fires I am very much in harm’s way from the bad air that fills the lungs of humans, dogs, cats, and all the critters and that turns the usual blue skies of California into grey skies and that fills my home with the smell of smoke.
–A Wake Up Call about Climate Change—that one entire political party is still standing in denial about climate change and refusing to do anything about it is beyond understanding.
–A Wake Up Call about our bad relationship to the rest of nature—how we have put power and profit over healthy living and caring and community.
–A Wake Up Call to put some Yin consciousness into our Yang empires.
All these Wake Up Calls are what gave birth to these Daily Meditations back on Mother’s Day: That we be grateful to our Mother the Earth and put her first in our decision making and that the motherly compassion in all humans, women and men, take priority over profits and wall street and big corporations/empires and all their patriarchal games. The Yin/Yang battle rages on.
How many more wake-up calls do we need to, well, wake up? Isn’t waking up what all spirituality is about?
See Matthew Fox, “This is Spirituality: Waking Up” in Matthew Fox, Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 126-136.
Banner image: “Aftermath” Photo by Joanne Francis on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you see these tragedies happening in nature today as part of a larger tragedy of our being cut off from Nature, Mother, and the Yin principle? How do we wake up to climate change and what it is telling us about our relationship to the rest of nature?
What can we do about the excessive Yang energy that dominates in so many arenas of our public (and private) lives?
Recommended Reading
Matthew Fox’s comprehensive translation of Meister Eckhart’s sermons is a meeting of true prophets across centuries, resulting in a spirituality for the new millennium. The holiness of creation, the divine life in each person and the divine power of our creativity, our call to do justice and practice compassion–these are among Eckhart’s themes, brilliantly interpreted and explained for today’s reader.
5 thoughts on “As the Fires Rage….”
Though I’ve not heard you speak, Father Fox (never worked out … kept just missing you …), you’ve had a profound influence on my spiritual path since I first heard of you (Late 80s-early 90s (you were in San Raphael, still. I was living in Novato) in your interview in the CBC trilogy, Goddess Remembered, Burning Time’s, Full Circle) … like a glimpse of something just ahead in the forest, your words and your books lead me forward. Just wanted you to know … Thank you.
Elizabeth,
Thank you for writing and sharing the way your life and Matthew’s life have intertwined over the decades. And her you are now, participating in his Daily Meditations! I hope that you keep track of his events to seek if you might yet hear him in person. A few are listed on the front of each Daily Meditation, and then there are more on his website, just a click away. Meanwhile, I will relay your greetings to him.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the Daily Meditation Team
With seven grandchildren and their parents living in CA, and countless other residents human and otherwise, I am so concerned about what is happening. I am grateful you are safe and say pray for all who struggle firsthand with these frightening environmental wakeup calls. We are all facing this growing climate storm. Thank you for your steady wisdom and inspiration. Your CS teachings keep me going through every day of climate dread.
Your words are a daily gift in my life. A call to action.
Thank you, Barbara, for your fervor.
We need many acts and prayers to turn this around. Each time we decide to do something different than what supported this mess we are in, we become part of the Great Turning. Its the dance of repentance, which in the original Hebrew means “turning around and going the other way.” Its good to have you with us on the journey.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the Daily Meditation Team