It’s been a heartbreaking few week for Oregonians. The fires, the smoke, more time indoors, isolation, the loss of life, both animal and human, homes and the loss of much beloved land.
It’s really easy to lose your mind if you think about all that is going on now. It’s hard not to feel helpless.
I remember my first time in the Northwest. I drove across the country in 1993 to North Cascades National Park, to start my first job as a ranger for the National Park Service. Of course, I had heard about the clear cutting out west. I considered myself a conservationist and an activist, but I had not been to this part of the country before and nothing prepared me for seeing entire hillsides devoid of trees.
The Overstory, by Richard Powers was the most inspiring book I’ve read in a long time. It’s about the trees. It about the people who are in relationship with trees. People who love and were willing to put their lives on the line for trees.
One part of the book that I loved, near the end of the story, one of the activists becomes a therapist of sorts. She isn’t trained except for her time in the woods. She listens to people, and they get better. She has the ability not to judge but to meet them with radical honesty about herself (this is none verbal; she isn’t literally telling people about what she has done). That naked truth telling, even non-verbal, is not only healing, but an invitation, permission to be that honest and compassionate with yourself. As a therapist, I loved this.
Find someone that you can be honest with, someone that you feel will be honest back. Human connection heals. If you cannot yet, or while you are looking – or gaining the courage to look inside – go outside. You don’t have to necessarily talk to the trees or hug them. But just look at them, notice them. See them. Let them help you to be more honest with yourself, to be more present with yourself, your life and what is most important to you.
