Unintended Consequences
When Things Break, When Things are Born
Whereas the Author Knocks Over a Dining Room Table Piled High with Glass Jars and Other Breakables Onto a Brick Floor
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For those of you who are new to Out of the Fire, I am a woman of many homes. While I'm on the road six to nine months out of the year (last year was particularly travel-heavy with the epic Wild, Willing, Wise book tour) my home base is in the wilds of Northern New Mexico, on 180-acres bordered by the Santa Fe National Forest.
Through lots of hard labor, many work parties with friends and neighbors, and the brilliance of some dedicated skilled contractors we have created a nourishing heart here is the wilderness, surrounded by devastation (From a “controlled burn” wildfire, 2022 we lost 175 of 180 acres of forest). At the core is the community kitchen, an adobe building we razed and then rebuilt using approximately 400 hand-crafted with love and sweat adobe bricks and 800 purchased adobe bricks hauled in from Albuquerque.
https://heatherash.substack.com/p/mud-pies-for-adults
Spring and fall are work times up on the land, and I gave myself the project of sealing the brick floor in the dining / lounging half of the building. This takes preparation. In theory that looked like:
First step: move everything out of the space.
Second step: sweep up sand and dirt.
Third step: crank the wood stove up to get the room warm.
Fourth step: mop sealer onto bricks.
Fifth step: Let dry.
Repeat second through fifth steps.
It was around 8 pm a few nights ago when I set about to prep the space. I moved chairs, tables, rugs, our seed ball making area. I dragged the sofa into the middle of the room. Then I eyed the huge oak dining table.
“How hard can it be to move it by myself,” I thought. “I can do this!”
Buoyed up by enthusiasm for getting a long-term project closer to completion, I left everything on the table. Then I picked up one end and moved it sideways.
Said heavy-ass table easily came off of the tall blocks that two of the legs were resting on. Now all I had to do was slide it around to rest on the upper kitchen floor. “Triumph!” I thought.
And then the edge tipped and everything went sliding off, onto the waiting, finite brick floor.
The crash was quite spectacular.
Glass jars filled with dog treats, seed balls, and seeds shattered. Office supplies scattered. One precious amber-glass oil lamp somehow bounced, rolled, and did not break.
Mystic looked at me with a “What the hell was that?” face and sat down, pondering the mess with me.
I took a deep breath, grabbed the dog so she wouldn't cut her feet, made sure she was safe, and faced my creation.
Unintended consequence.
Our lives are filled with intended creations and unintended consequences. Some unintended consequences are surprisingly beautiful or wonderfully functional. Many of the things humans have created have been from unintended consequences: pottery probably came from unintentionally leaving clay near a fire. Give more examples here.
My mess from dumping the table over was a easily preventable unintended consequence. If I had only taken an extra minute to survey the situation, I would have seen my choice was not viable without consequences. I would have seen that I needed another human's help to move the table.
Now, I could punish myself for my haste and ignoring the laws of physics, or I could make a note of my error and then clean it up.
I think our happiness and self-compassion lies not in only how well we create consciously, but especially in how we take responsibility for and clean up our created unwanted unintended consequences.
It takes practice shifting from punishment to discernment; from frustration to honesty. This is maturity. When we are immature, or unseasoned, we blame others for our mistakes, or spend hours beating ourselves up for all of our faults. Or we pretend that nothing happened and try to just move on without taking in the consequences.
When we do this the weight of our own shame or our own denial/avoidance is like a heavy backpack. We are burdened by the past, often compounding the weight we carry by taking on other people's unresolved consequences.
When we face the truth of our actions, clear-eyed and conscious, we can take stock of what is our responsibility to set right and clean. We learn and grow. We become wiser. We slow down and maturely explore possibilities and outcomes before we take action.
But even with all the awareness and foresight and care in the world, we are still going to create unintended consequences.
Clean. Them. Up.
Make it a ceremony.
After I put the puppy up I surveyed the mess. I slowed my breathing, got really present, and began to pick up and put the glass shards in a safe container and set aside what had not broken. I went back to my intent: to create more beauty by sealing the brick floor. This was now part of my beauty-making process. Instead of rushing through the clean up, or beating myself up for creating such a mess, I breathed. I sorted. I showed up for what I created.
And then I moved on.
You are responsible for the unintended consequences of the messes you create. But this doesn't mean you must punish or avoid. Turn and smile. This is a good mess. I didn't mean to create this. But I did.
Note: You are not responsible for other people's unintended consequences. Don't make them yours. Give people the grace to learn how to clean up their own messes. Unless someone asks you for help, or you are directly responsible for them – they are your young child or someone you are caretaking, like an elderly parent – can you stay steady without judgment while they clean things up, or not? There will be consequences for them, and you don't need to take those on or try to help them avoid the results of their actions.
But this brings us to another topic: the collective.
I do believe we are responsible to each other. Not for each other, but to each other. Just as we are responsible to the Earth and all her creatures and manifestations. If we take and take, believing we have a right to all the resources, there are consequences. If we pretend our actions do not affect the Earth or other beings, there are consequences.
We are not isolated beings, unaffected by the world or other people's choices. Every choice we make has consequence; there is no avoiding this. As we evolve and grow we see the interconnectedness of Life and how our choices can benefit or harm.
We then do our best to benefit the collective and the Earth, knowing we are not separate. We are a thread in a larger tapestry.
Here is an example: I'm currently living close to the earth, in a 12 x 15 tent, off grid. But powering this computer is a battery that uses resources from some other part of the world. This computer I'm typing on has components within that are harming the earth. My cell phone, my truck, the solar panels... all allow me to share and inspire and teach; and they are also creating harm somewhere.
The organic salad I bought from the store last week comes in a plastic container. The coffee I drink is fair trade, but the truth is that it also took petroleum to deliver it from the far off lands where it was grown.
Here is a truth: unless we make all our own clothes from the fibers of some local plant, grow our own food, build our own shelters – we going to have an negative impact somewhere. (and even then... there will still be consequences from our existence.)
But this doesn't mean we just give up and do whatever we want to without understanding the impact.
Maturity is understanding that we cannot avoid consequences, to learn to hold the tension of this truth, and to do our best to minimize harm.
Sometimes we don't see these consequences for years or even decades. This is why part of being a mature, caring human being on a finite ball of a planet means understanding the impact of long-term consequences from short-term benefit.
This is why I will continue to protest, write about, call my representatives, stay educated, and rest/resource in regards to the current administration. I am not sure if we are seeing the effects of unintended or intended consequences; I do believe much of the chaos is intended as a way of consolidating power rather than as a form of helping the collective in the long run. In times when power is creating harm, those of us who have capacity must look to how we can help mitigate harm.
My prayer is that in this short lifetime I may continue to take responsibility for my own unintended consequences and clean them up as ceremony. May I be more thoughtful of my actions. May I be more mindful of my part in nourishing and supporting the whole. May I not turn away from other people's suffering. May I be responsible to, while releasing any caretaking or martyr savior ego. May I walk lightly on this Earth, giving back in gratitude and honor. May I hold the tension of knowing that there will always be consequences for every action I take, some beneficial, some harmful.
May these times birth some positive unintended consequences as well: people catalyzed to stand up for what they believe in, the collective owning its power, somehow a return to deep care for each other, the honoring and celebration of differences, the right to choose, an end of quick solutions that harm and an opening to long-term solutions that include, a softening of hard edges and a quickening to turn apathy and despair into creative action and new vision.
Let’s make beauty, dear ones.
Share any stories of unintended consequences, or your thoughts on these times…
