“Chris. Chris, wake up” my husband’s sweet voice cut through my screaming. When I came to, I sobbed for a while. He held me. It was a dream so powerful it shook reality. 

This week, I have begun to experience what I suspected may be coming after living through a natural disaster: An initiation. 

So much has been moving inside me. It’s been disorienting, a feeling not unlike a hurricane. Something like a spiral, something like a swirling, something like living without railing, something so powerful that the only thing to do is to let go. 

Recent years have brought 2 prior initiations which completely changed my understanding of the world and my relationship to life, itself. First, the venom of the covid years, with all their primal fear, unexpected hatred, chaos, confusion, and division. And then, the heart-shattering sudden death of a best friend which slowly, over the span of years, has restitched me into a greater love, greater tenderness, greater discernment, and a greater understanding of what it means to be in a true community. 

As soon as the hurricane hit my heartland in the last days of September, I felt that familiar feeling beginning again: Life taking me by the Soul to have its way with me. So, you think you know what it’s all about, it said respectfully, let us show you the next layer. In the days after the storm, still in shock, I promised Life that this time, I would not resist the process, but allow it to take me where it wants me to go. I promised to stay anchored in trust in the intelligence of the holiest thing I can name: Life. Life sent this experience and I will receive it, in full. 

The recipe for walking through Initiation I pieced together for myself in those two prior experiences is this: 

1. Lay down your plans in the compost pile. 
2. Walk in the woods for longer than is reasonable. 
3. Sit in Circles of all kind to share and to listen. 
4. Help and be helped by community. 
5. Prioritize sleep.
6. Let yourself be moved; Dance, sing, feel.
7. Write. 
8. Repeat. 

I believe everyone who walks through an initation has the power to sift out a recipe all their own. 

The days after, have turned to weeks now. And finally my favorite most frequented trails have (mostly) reopened. So, I laced up my boots, filled my water pack, and with my pup by my side, I did one of the only things I know to do at a time like this – I started walking. 

When we entered the forest, my jaw dropped as I saw the evidence of a modest creek who turned to biblical flood. My eyes traced the changes in the contours of the land, with so many of it’s plants and trees sideways, almost frozen in mud. 

We approached the creek, now returned to its humble self, running clear, and gentle, and constant. Instinctually, I walked to the edge and dipped my hand in the water and scooped some onto the crown of my head and again on the crown of my pup’s head. An honoring of my Grandmother, Gregoria Guerrero, who never encountered a body of water without doing just that. 

As we continued our walk through the golden Autumn forest, I could feel the ritual beginning to hold me. We encountered a giant tree which had fallen so hard, you could see where the earth caught it, and cradled its body, before the helpers came to cut it into pieces and move it off the trail. My dog sat patient as I counted every one of its 79 rings, before pressing my whole body against it. I prayed that the beating of my heart was received as love and honoring of this great elder – fallen. 

I looked up to see that all the many trees standing there had lost a friend, an elder, a constant. I imagined the conversation happening underfoot – the loss, the need to rework the systems of support immediately. I felt for them, standing there, alive and safe, and witnessing the body of their companion. 

I don’t speak tree, but found myself bowing. To bow and mean it was the altar I could offer with the only thing I had, my body. 

As in the two initiations prior, a loss of innocence was the first thing to happen. Or maybe it was the second or third? Looking back, it was the most powerful, in the beginning phase. A slow realization that some long-held illusion could not hold, and like the great white oak, must fall. 

I’ve heard it said more times than I can count that Western North Carolina had features which would protect it from the changes in the climate. An idea I took great comfort in at the deepest level, at the level of basic survival. No matter the heavily debated why, the reality of the rising waters is here, right here. 

Early in the storm I got a message from my Grambo Maddox who lives nearby which read, “In all our years here, I don’t remember non stop rain for this long…”

The message reminded me of another elder in my life, who said of the covid-era division and hatred that she had never in all her years experienced anything like it. 

Also a 93 year old man I heard on the radio after Helene, who had seen the valley he grew up in swept out by the water, taking with it the homes and lives of his friends and family, who said tenderly, and through a thick Appalachian draw, I’ve never seen anything like it… I’ll miss them so. 

For those of us alive now, like so many of our ancestors from generations back, we are living through storms, both literal and metaphorical, that are unlike anything our living elders have seen. 

Some questions begin to rise. How will we be through this? Who will we be through this? This, the incredible vulnerability of being. 

I read somewhere that one of the Fema officials said of the aftermath, that he had never seen anything quite like the community response of Asheville. As much as people clown on the hippie vibes of Asheville, there’s no place I’d rather be. The level & feel here of deep loving help given freely and instantly, well its the kind of thing that heals one’s faith in humanity. A medicine I so deeply need. Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart… 

In the 9.3 miles that my pup and I walked through the forest, there was a lot of bowing, and a lot of gold. 

In the beauty and quiet of the forest, I had insights about the dream so strong it shook reality which gave me hints about where to turn my attention. And within the motion of the walking, I found a stillness at the center of my being. 

Before we ended our time in the forest, we went back to the little creek and saw a spider floating on the water, sunlight pouring over her, casting a shadow that looked like a spring flower. I thought of those myths who speak of Grandmother Time as a spider and found some comfort in remembering.

I scooped up the water once again on my girl’s head, and on my own, honoring the kind and faithful heart of my Grandmother on the other side. 

I don’t know where this is all going. I don’t know what I’ll understand in a few years looking back. But I will keep the promise I made to Life, to trust the process unfolding, and to follow the recipe given to me through hard-won experience: 

1. Lay down your plans in the compost pile. 
2. Walk in the woods for longer than is reasonable. 
3. Sit in Circles of all kind to share and to listen. 
4. Help and be helped by community. 
5. Prioritize sleep.
6. Let yourself be moved; Dance, sing, feel.
7. Write. 
8. Repeat. 

Did you know that when trees fall, their roots are revealed, and stand up on their side looking like giant muddy stars? 

May we keep walking forward with stars of mud around us, and stars of light above. 

Thank you for caring enough to read this. I hope it’s been of some use to you. 

Love from the Blue Ridge Mountains, 

Chris 

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