Rising from the Ashes

Dear Creator,

We see, hear and feel the agony of the horrible fires in Los Angeles. We feel our tears, our fear, and searing sorrow growing in our hearts and don’t want to bear witness to another moment of those flames of people leaving by the hundreds and thousands, and of the animals running to and through and around the land trying to seek their way out.  What can we do from so far away? What can we do when the smoke filters across the blue skies not so far away from here in San Diego, where over the hill, we see our own minute fires burn, and cannot be compared to the blazing towns and cities north of our freeways?

Yes, we run to the organizations and churches, groups and individuals, friends, family, and neighbors gather to find our ways to help in material, financial and human efforts to help in some way—small or big!  And it is Sunday and we pray. We pray and ask for answers to the whys and the wherefores of such tragic events.  Some of us feel that angst returns, for we have seen suffering and experienced the pain and can never forget.  But here it is again, this crisis, a human and spiritual crisis.

For me, I know how minuscule it seems to start to call my closest friends, even during these hours when my ailing hospitalized daughter needs me, to find some way to help.  And then I read Kathy Eldon’s words of hope and of communication to all of us who know this wise and accomplished woman is a soul who knows and understands these trying moments of testing our faith and our tolerance of the sorrow and pain of our own experiences, but of others, only because she has been there and even in these moments of terror of maybe losing all of her heartstrings attached to dear memories and love,  I hear and see her and the words, her words of hope and courage.

I think of those of us so seemingly unaffected so far away from the flames, smoke, burning, and evacuations as the intensity increases and so much is destroyed and lost.  And I feel my own grief, as I always do when tragedies happen, and for what I have done in war zones, the aftermath of Mother Nature's fury—hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, cyclones and so much more. It’s the same fear rising when I hear of school shootings, senseless terrorists acts, and human disasters that people kill people for reasons no one can explain.  We are a species that have feelings unlike any other—to care for one another, respect, feel empathy, compassion, and sorry, and when happiness is not present, we are left to GRIEVE.

Rising from the AshesJoanne Tawfilis

And so, with Kathy’s postings, I had to set aside my own worry and grief that continued to rise in my soul and my stomach, and can no nourishment for food, because I feel such suffering a hundred times from the hundred miles of flames that are consuming everything in it’s path. And Kathy’s words again ring in my ears to continue to hope, to band together, to help one another, and the only way I know how aside from the traditional “giving” is to help myself and others lessen the grief some of us feel for so many. I pull out the tables, the canvas and brushes and send a call to others to come paint and create our catharsis that develops into a greeting for positivity and hope to the victims of these unreal tragedies. 

So we started by the church on a sunny Sunday morning and will continue to do so as we did with the tsunamis, California fires of years past, hurricanes so violent the earth shook in Louisiana, the Carolinas, Florida and Puerto Rico, and just too many to list as climate change continues to exhibit the reality of what some still deny! Painting murals releases part of that surging grief as the brush strokes express our feelings and hopefully send comforting messages to others who will know we are not in their shoes, but we feel their grief as well and in some way, big or small, we will do something, anything to help.

Perhaps painting healing murals with our art miles murals doesn’t seem to resound much in comforting or replenishing the material and memories of what these fires consumed to so many victims and mounting loss.  But on Sunday morning, we send hopes and prayers for those who must continue rising from the ashes, as only humans can do in partnership with spiritual strength, prayer, and Mother Nature’s magical way of regeneration.

Look for more to come, because this human loss seems insurmountable today, but again, as always, we will find our ways together, as we continue rising from the ashes.