There is something about sudden change.....
In the aftermath of fleeing the inferno that most likely consumed my home and everything in it that didn't come away with me -- which wasn't much -- already the spirit of freedom begins to arise sometimes bittersweet, sometimes joyfully within. Knowing that there is a whole shitload of grief to be gotten through before it can really burn pure and bright.
What is the heart of Calaveras County for me burned up in less than 48 hours.
Picture of burning Calaveras County from the Ledger Dispatch
Of course my home was the center of my Universe. I am a total home body. It all happens for me there, and FROM there I can move out into the world. Being a double Capricorn, well, earth life is very important to me: Gardening. Firewood. Movement. Drums. Plants. Critters. Rocks & Trees. Food.
A great swath of beautiful magical Calaveras County went up in flames on 9-10/9-11 and continues to burn at 30% containment now on day 6. I am not alone in this apocalypse, so many others have lost their places as well, not to mention the change to the landscape like none of us have ever seen.
The day of Thursday 9-10, I went to my garden clients Di and Blair Jackson out on Worden Road, like usual.
It was VERY smokey as the fire had started less than 24 hours earlier and was rapidly moving into Calaveras County, but I hung out for a few hours starting lettuce and beets in trays, la la la.
Coming home around 1 through Mtn. Ranch by the Joses, the sky and landscape were utterly surreal and remarkable. Of course no camera in hand. It looked like the cover of one of Carlos Castaneda's books. The sky was the same color as the field, a golden yellow, and lit with a light like you see in bright lightening. The sun was blood red in the gray black sky and the trees an odd brilliant green.
So I carried on home and hung out on the internet for a few hours, hearing the fire planes getting closer every so often. I could also hear explosions and rumblings now and again, some louder, some further away. That was in the afternoon.
About 4 o'clock I got the idea to shoot some pictures or video. I went up on my roof and lo! Eeeek! I could see it from there, over the trees, still some ridges away I presumed, but flames were clearly visible and the smoke was black.
A great swath of the skyline was engulfed in smoke and there was a lot of ash raining down, including burnt leaves.
Okay I have to tell you something about me, I'm kind of a closet pyro. I get off on fire. It releases odic force, I perceive this. I'm into working with fire, I
So I wasn't too freaked out to see this inferno in the distance, not really thinking it would .... do what it did so fast. I'm out there shooting video for nearly 20 minutes chattering away about it.
I went out again after dark, which happened very early that night and shot this:
Butte Fire from my home in Mtn. Ranch on 9-10-15
Some hours later, like around 11, the power started to flicker and go out. That should have been my que. Actually it might have been. I really don't recall what happened after that, how long I may have sat there in the dark listening. I know I tried to call my friend Peter in the Bay Area but couldn't find his number.
The roar had definitely gotten louder by then, with nothing else to listen to. If you can hear the roar of a fire that you think is some distance away, well then, that is one big ol' blaze. The explosions were more frequent and louder as well. I noticed there weren't any planes any more, which was kind of my gauge for how close it was coming.
Suddenly I felt very alone out there. Me and the fire. It occurred to me that I was maybe not going to get a nice sheriff coming down the drive to say "excuse me Miss, you have 4 hours to pack up and leave" -- No.
And then when I definitely saw from my living room window that the canyon directly across from me was on fire, I said to myself, pack what you absolutely need and can find into your car and get the hell out of there.
It was dark. I put my laptop in the case, grabbed a flashlight, my 2 herbal notebooks, a couple tinctures, a blanket and pillow, some apple tart to eat and 4 jugs of old stored water -- because the power was out and I couldn't run any fresh.
I opened the cat food bin. The cats were scared and didn't get what was happening. I told them, I'm
leaving, RUN!!!! There was no way to take them. I was fleeing into the night, into the unknown, I had no provision for taking cats, not to mention the fact that even the tamest ones are hard to catch under the BEST of circumstances. I trust their instincts more than I trusted what would happen to them loose in my car. I told them, RUN!
I will never forget that scene, chucking the last things into my car, seeing my cats in the yard and at the gate, my house back lit from the fire behind it, knowing that these might be last moments at the home I have loved for so long, but still somehow thinking too that maybe I would just go down to town and spend the night at the Resource Center and be back home in the morning.
I got in the car but before I could leave something said "get yer chainsaw" so I ran back in and got it. Sheeesh, never leave home without your chainsaw and gardening tools. I also had all seeds and tools I haul around to clients' gardens for work still in the car. Which is not a bad thing.
When I got to the park entrance in Mtn. Ranch I could see a sheriff car at the intersection ahead, lights on. I had snuck down the back way into the parking lot by the Resource Center and was planning to spend the night in my car.
But before doing that I walked over to where many vehicles were parked by the side of the road and the officer was directing things. I asked him for an update on evacuations, he told me nobody was being allowed back up my direction except to get animals.
So I guess that was my official evacuation notice, thank you.
I settled myself back down in the car to rest a bit. Shortly thereafter 2 people with flashlights approached my car, it was a friend and her daughter. She reported that she was coming up from Pacifica to her home away from home in RR Flat and heard that her road was gone.
We talked for a bit, then I let the ladies into the Resource Center to spend the night, figuring we would all have more info by morning and there was nothing to be done about it. I settled down in my car again to have a puff. Nothing about the night was quite conducive to sleeping. As I was sitting there, after awhile I noticed, gee it's getting a lot brighter in the direction of the Joses Ranch, which was just up the road.
And then the breath of hell swept up. Wind generated by fire has a completely different quality to it. It said "GET OUT OF HERE". I immediately got those ladies up and hustled us on out. We got in our cars and both drove off into the night. For the second time.
By that time it was around 2 in the morning and not lost on me that I was in the middle of doing something I absolutely hate -- driving at night out on the highway, and under extenuating circumstances. As I approached San Andreas where there was an evacuation shelter, it just didn't feel like the right thing to do. San Andreas was way too close to it as well and just as likely to get evacuated. So I turned towards Angels Camp with the intention to head to Sonora and see my friend Alan. At 2 am.
So I made it through Sonora like a little gray mouse and headed up the 108 to Alan's road. I hadn't been there in some years, trying to recall the entrance, which I found with no problem. However once on the road I realized I had no idea, what with all the driveways this way and that, and some changes. After getting turned around in several people's places that clearly weren't the road, I decided to go back out. The dynamics of his road were only slightly better than mine, what with the all night cranksters in residence at the top of it.
I went to the nearby mini-mart and called him, not expecting an answer. Terrible message for anyone to have to hear: "Alan..... This is Kristine. Calaveras County just burned down and I had to evacuate, I'm down the road at the Standard Mini Mart after trying to find your house in the dark.... etc etc etc".
Well I tried one more time to find my way down his road but again, it was just too confusing and no way I tried seemed right. Rather than get shot at, I opted to go back down to the Mini Mart area, found a distant parking spot and spent what was left of the night in my car.
Alan found me in the car the next morning on Wifi at the adjacent McDonalds. We drove back to his place and I've been there since, 3 or 4 days now I think. It has been wonderful to be in such familiar circumstances.
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| One of my former black cats Nanna Bella |
I'm sleeping on a pad on the deck -- which I totally like. His black cat who looks just like my black cats who I will love forever comes and sleeps next to me and cleans the burrs out of her furs on my bed. That makes me feel so at home.
And the last 2 nights I've heard a mountain lion calling in the distance. It is all I can do to not call back. But I know if I did that, it would come down here to investigate. Somehow though, I feel it was calling just for me.
Sudden change. It's different when it affects a community. It isn't just me. And it's true, at this moment, I don't know for absolute certain that my place is gone. But I think it is, and even if there is something still standing -- other circumstances surrounding my being there will more than likely make it impossible.
Who do we think will be the first ones back?
BORG.
Oh yes. Well I have had my fill of Borg.
In the last weeks before the fire I got 3 nails in 2 weeks in my tires from those losers. Several folks in my world got them too.
And I even got a nice "F*** You" hand print left in my driveway during the last nail siege.
No, I'm not going back there. MAYBE to look, if that is even possible. There is also one more circumstance I don't want to write about at present that I know would close the door on that chapter of my life.
Besides, I know by reading the energy -- I've been released. My desire now is to live in simplicity for awhile. I want to live out in the woods in a simple structure. And am having a warrior's giggle over it -- because every time I've been ejected from there, always under traumatic circumstances, what do I do? I seem to end up somewhere where I can live in the woods, sleeping mostly outside.
Here we are again. Today I will go up to a most fantastic ranch on the Tuolumne River and stay with a dear friend who lives there. Bottini Apple Ranch has a long colorful history of hippie doings, and is still the mountain shangri-la home of friends who came there years ago. I can sleep on her deck, wander in the woods and call to the mountain lions.
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| Calaveras County Earth Day |
The grieving will come. My warrior's character totally carries me at this time, as well as the fact that there is nothing to be done about it but grieve and go on, look to the arising of the new. I live in an amazing community of people. I can't think of anyone I'd rather rebuild life with than that group over there in Calaveras.
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| Clan Dyken |
As ash particles still continue to rain down slightly, the fire STILL burning now for the 6th day, I will close this blog on a note of great hope amidst terrible loss. It will be life altering but again I say, my community is the best, we will rebuild. Trees grow. People like me know how to call the nature spirits back. I look so forward to what is to come, including a community grieving process to help share the burden of the loss.
I feel very lucky indeed. Blessings and love to all who have helped me, sent prayers and healing to me and to the whole of the situation for all involved.
I grieve also for the wild animals and the loss of those many relationships, especially the Maha.
But somehow I know there is another one in my future.
Goddess Bless.
