When you Lose the Vision Let Others Hold it for You

Even, or especially, when you don't believe

One of the questions post-wildfire: should we rebuild? Or should we walk away?

When my long-term dream of having land became a reality of stewarding land in 2018, I had a five-year vision. Build a community kitchen and teaching space to share workshops. Build cabins for people to do personal retreats. Offer the land for wilderness quests and as a healing sanctuary. Thin the trees that were planted too close together, and limb up lower branches in case of fire.

And then it all went up in literal smoke. 

Well, almost all of it. The firefighters saved our community kitchen and shed. We had a tiny island of green in the middle of acres of black.

(If you haven’t read my article on the wildfire, read: When What You Love Destroys What You Love.)

I spend days walking the land and praying, listening. When people visited I sent them out to walk along the creek or up to the grandmother tree, and then asked them what they felt. Stay or retreat? Rebuilt or release?

In the early days after the fire I had two encounters that helped keep me going, even though I didn’t believe them.

Both were from strangers.

The first was sent via messenger. I had been posting updates on the wildfire on social media, and a woman who was part of my larger spiritual community reached out to me.

In Make Lemonade from the Ashes  I wrote about how painful it can be when you are chest-deep in the waters of grief and someone says cheerfully, trying to skip over the messy parts and head straight to the it-is-all-going-to-be-okay: “There are pine trees that need fire to grow!”

This was different.

She introduced herself. Shared how we were connected. Expressed how sorry she was for my loss. I could feel her heart through her words. And I could feel the soft, relational weaving of an indigenous woman reaching across time and space to deliver a message. She let me know that she never shared the messages she received while in ceremony. And that the only reason she was writing was from being strongly guided to share the message with me. 

The core of the message: “Now you can rebuild with love.”

I took it as a message from the cosmos, a spirit coming from afar to whisper “trust” in my ear.

But I still didn’t really trust it could be true. I could not imagine rebuilding from this much devastation.

The second stranger to share a glimpse into the future was my neighbor, Marla. 

She first came to this area as an 11-year old, and had been roaming the land for 50 years. In 1968 her adopted mother, Connie, bought a one-mile square section against the Sangre de Cristo mountains. My 180-acres was the most western portion of this now divided property, at the end of the road and against the national forest.

One day about a month after the wildfire Marla and I drove up on the ridge from the eastern edge of the property to the west, and into some of the worst burn area on the land. The earth was still literally smoking.

The smoke is from roots burning underground, which continued for weeks. May 2022.

As we got out of the truck and walked, she had tears in her eyes. “This was always my favorite part of the land,” she said. “I used to ride up here on my horse when I was a kid and sit for hours.

 “It is one of my favorite places, too,” I said. 

We stood in silence for a long time, staring at the blackened mountains.

Then she turned to look me in the eye. “I know this looks bad to you,” she said gently. “But I can already see how beautiful it is going to be.”

Even though I could barely hold these two women’s messages to me, I could lean into their knowing. I could let them hold what they saw, and not need to figure out how to believe them, or how to get from here to there. 

Three months later I traveled to Scotland to teach my second firewalk instructor training since the wildfire. I’ve been lighting fires on purpose and teaching others how to walk across the coals for decades; now my relationship with fire felt even more intimate, and tender. Honestly, looking back I was still somewhat in shock.

A few days into the workshop my co-teachers, Peggy Dylan and Stephen Mulhearn, listened to me share about the fire. They asked questions, consoled, and listened. 

And then they gave me something else to hold onto. 

Three affirmations.

Which I didn’t believe.

- The land is taken care of by the right people

- By feeding the land you nourish the whole earth

- The unfolding new dream is even more beautiful for me and the land

These all felt like impossible wishes, unreal visions. I still had smoke and acres of black trees and ruin in my head.

But I had learned enough from past challenging times: sometimes you have to trust others to hold the vision of possibility when you can’t.

And so I literally carried those words around with me for months. Every once in a while I would pull the paper out, read the words, wince at the impossibility, and then tuck the paper away.

I kept going, one foot after another, not knowing how any of this was going to come about.

I still didn’t have the capacity to see beyond my own grief and shock. 

It was a phone call from another stranger, months later, that started putting real ground under the wisps of possibility. She was a friend of a friend, an indigenous woman whose Pueblo had gone through a devastating wildfire in 2011. 

The Las Conchas fire, which like the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fires, was started by a government “controlled burn.” It burned 156,000 acres, moving in the first 13 hours at almost an acre a second.

By John Fowler from Placitas, NM, USA - Las Conchas Fire

After reading her bio I was a little bit intimidated to speak with her, and also very aware of how immensely busy she was. 

Beata Tsosie-Peña, is from Santa Clara Pueblo and El Rito, NM. She is certified as an Educator, a Birthworker, and in Indigenous Sustainable Design (permaculture). She led the creation of the Española Healing Foods Oasis demonstration garden and Seed Library during her time with the local nonprofit, Tewa Women United. She is currently helping to support the Traditional Native American Farmers Association and Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute. She is serving a second term as a Pueblo representative for the New Mexico Governor's task force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives.

For over a decade, she has been working to address impacts and advocate for environmental and reproductive health and justice. She is now the Organizational Director for Breath of My Heart Birthplace in traditional Kha'p'o Owingeh territory, in Española NM.

From https://www.landwitnessproject.com/beata-tsosie-pena

Beata Tsotsie-Peña

I kept reminding myself that she had agreed to talk to me. That we were sisters with wildfire in common. I felt strongly that she was the link I’d been praying for. So after our first introductory texts I started calling, seeing if I could catch her in-between my travels and her very full life.

And then one day she answered the phone.

She shared about the damage to her Pueblo, the long-term work to restore the land which continues to this day. How the fire burned so hot that it destroyed their watershed, the sand there melting into glass.

She talked about making seed balls, planting native seeds, the need for erosion control. She agreed to come visit, to see what was the next step for remediation. And she asked if she could bring her friend, who was doing an unusual research project about land remediation using mycelium.

After our first phone conversation I wept.

Relief. Wonder. Heartbreak. Possibility.

It took us months to coordinate our schedules. The rains came and went. Fall melted into winter. Winter moved towards spring.  I would text her every couple of weeks, gentle hellos.

I trusted. And waited. And kept leaning into other people’s vision and affirmations.

The stars did align, our schedules synced up, and we agreed to meet on March 1^st at Plants of the Southwest in Santa Fe. She would show me what seeds to buy, teach me how to make seed balls, and introduce me to her researcher friend, Kaitlin.

At that meeting I at last understood that the vision of strangers and the affirmation of friends were all, completely, unbelievably, true.

Seed balls made by kids that Gail, fabulous owner of Plants of the Southwest, shared with me. I carried one of them around with me as a tangible talisman of hope and rebirth.

In next week’s writing I’ll introduce you to Kaitlin. Our first conversation began with:

“Well, what I’m doing is a little bit out there.”

“I doubt anything you share would be out there for me,” I responded.

In truth what she shared next was truly beyond, and better than, anything I could have conceived of.

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Resources

https://breathofmyheart.org

https://sur.conectas.org/en/not-separate-struggle-spirituality/

https://www.plantsofthesouthwest.com/