Strange Weird Gifts
How do we say thank you? When the destruction gives and takes
“This is an archetype event isn’t it? The whole death and rebirth thing?”
I was getting into my car, when the guy walking by shot that in my direction with a gleeful look on his face. We all laughed.
This is small talk in Topanga 2 days after the evacuation orders were lifted. Everyone is talking to everyone. Because we are here.
Here’s the thing I can’t let go of:
The reason our canyon didn’t burn down is because there was a group of people who didn’t leave and self organized until the fire workers were able to arrive 2 days after the fires started.
Christopher set up headquarters at the library, a group went on propane patrol, and turned off everyone’s propane, the heat hawks was formed, and went on fire spotting and fire fighting brigade, the communication experts developed new systems for 1000’s of people to get real time information on where the fires were, and then disaster relief. There were a couple of guys with big trucks who raised their hands and said put me to work, and rescued horses and donkeys, and on and on and on.
The destruction cycle holds strange weird gifts.
We stepped out of a transactional culture,
and people gave what they have to give
their well honed skills, and mastery, time, energy, effort,
Freely– to meet a common goal: protect our home.
To protect our home.
The threat of destruction,
the first thing it took was transactional behavior
As it catapulted us into a moment of “what do I have to give and how can I give it?”
(Side note: I know of so many who wanted to jump in but who had children and parents to tend to. And there is this: In trauma, there is fight, flight, or freeze. I’m no expert, but based on conversations with people who survived the Maui fires and this one, just because you responded to the last emergency in one way, does not define how you will respond to the next one. And finally, there are waves. We are an ocean of consciousness operating, and there will be the first wave, and the next wave…I’m speaking about what happened in the first wave of response— but now– the moment has arrived when the next wave is needed.)
Back to the main point:
We were catapulted into the original cycle of life: of giving, and receiving.
There are many indigenous teachings on the cycle of life of giving and receiving. In essence, There are many old stories about how people could ask an animal for its life to feed their family, and the animal would offer itself in the hunt,
The gift was received.
Gratitude was given back in return,
And the cycle of life continued:
Ask
Give
Receive
Gratitude
As a community: we were just catapulted into this new/old way of operating.
Stephen Jenkinson teaches that the first part of your life is about cultivating your gifts:
The second part is about finding the place where your gifts will be received,
And the third act – is, well, the 3rd act.
We are living in a time when so many are asking what is theirs to give? And as a community-- we just had a very embodied experience that for a community to continue: we need every single gift to be given,:from creating excel spreadsheet, to hosting a song circle to bring us back together.
A group of people started operating under this condition:
What is needed?
What do I have to give?
Now.
I making a commercial break to tell you that MEDICINE STORIES course is about to begin. This is a course that is designed to reveal and amplify the gifts you have to give.
Partial scholarships available. Email info@leahlamb.com with more questions
We stepped out of capitalism.
We stepped out of what will people pay me for?
In defense of life itself.
It was liberating to see how much we could accomplish under these circumstances.
It’s why I want you to know this destruction cycle we are in– (in so many ways)
While terrifying, discombobulating, tragic, – because it is.
…in so many ways…
is opening the doors to create something new.
The desire to go back to life as normal is here.
And there is this: there is no going back.
We have been changed.
We can’t unsee or unknow what just happened.
And the bills and jobs aren’t stopping. They are still going.
But many in the community are asking:
How do we say thank you?
How do we give gratitude?
How do we keep the cycle of life in its purest form that we just touched – going?
Now that the original ways of the cycle of life have been given back and experienced and we lived in its maximum fullness for 11 days (and way more. People are still showing up and giving as healers, as disaster relief experts…
….as… and now there is this: Now that the fires are gone, we are left with the disaster they left behind. Miles and miles and miles of toxic pollution.
This living the consequences for how the past generations designed and built their lives is our inheritance.
And is threatening our lives, and the lives of our fish, fish, birds, and waters.
Because now there is a plan to place the waste from the palisades in Topanga to sort through it.
If you just gasped–at the concept that we are a canyon that had everything burn around it, and was saved, and now are facing the possibility of waste being bright over and destroying our river and ocean,
well you are not alone.
The activists have stepped up.
How do we keep the cycle of life that was given back to us alive?
How do we say thank you as a community in a meaningful way?
We know that some people who showed up and gave tirelessly are living on nickels and dimes– and money would bring ease.
We know some of the people who showed up and gave tirelessly have financial security, a financial donation wouldn’t have the same impact.
How do we keep the cycle of life going?
How do we give to those who gave so that they continue to have the energy and resource to continue to give?
And how do we be with what wants to die?
“This is an archetype event isn’t it?
The whole death and rebirth thing?”
#small talk in Topanga