My Home Still Stands: A Case for Compassion (Pt. 7)

Ornate ceramic and stone pieces surround a koi pond in a Valley Fire devastated neighborhood

How does the human mind make sense of the seeming chaos?

I instinctively knew not to get too close to the crippled buck--concerned eyes shone through his protective furrowed brow. If we got too close, feeling  threatened, he would flee--possibly injuring himself further.

As Nathan captured images of a large ashened concrete and brick fish pond, I tended to a half ajar gate leading down to a small earthen pond. Surely the buck would need water and ensuring an easy path seemed the most important thing I could do to increase his likelihood of survival.

The burnt-orange and speckled black koi swam slowly around the rectangular pond--they had survived. We cleared debris off partially submerged fencing used to keep koi predators at bay. Broken chunks of large ceramic and concrete figurines lay strewn about the brick lip of the pond. Obviously a once precisely designed and carefully tended garden space, it now looked quite aged, as if from some ancient civilization. I imagined the owners a well-travel elder gay couple who who returned many times from the Orient, bringing home rare, one-of-a-kind and garishly ornate treasures.

Enroute to our friend's home, undertaking a wellness check as canine companions were left at home on what began as a typical summer Saturday in Lake County, I couldn't help but notice for the first time the haphazard randomness of the fire--homes demolished down to brick, concrete or dirt  surrounded by blackened tree sticks juxtaposed with unscathed homes, tucked and hemmed in with still-thriving green conifers, solemn oaks and thirsty bushes.

How does the human mind make sense of all the seeming randomness--the chaos? Lives in a moments notice forever changed--a small community thrust and scattered into oblivion, never landing in the same configuration again; never to feel the tediousness of day to day life together again; never to experience the security of stable community with each other again.

These incomprehensible explorations of mental wonderings and wanderings allows the mind to be blown--drug-free blown--at least temporarily.

It's one thing when a neighbor or two--or at the outside sometimes three--move away in a short period of time, but to have half of the community gone in a mere few hours is unthinkable. Unknowable. The logical mind wants so hard to make sense of it--how does karma play in all of this? Can that much karma be planned so timely precisely where the culmination of thousands of lives are impacted by a single event such as this? What impact will this have on the community over time? Over a year? Over a generation? At one point will this be long forgotten like so many other catastrophic events over time?

These incomprehensible explorations of mental wonderings and wanderings allowed my mind to be blown--drug-free blown--at least temporarily.

I was suddenly thrust into the heart--the only place where absurd inquiries such as this can be held safely, wholly. It's a philosopher's dream.

​JoAnn Saccato, MA is a mindfulness teacher, author and life coach living in Northern California.