Like many of us who love life in the beautiful Australian bush, last year's fires came too close for comfort to our tree-canopied Eltham suburb.
It has been a year of bombardment through the media, stories from friends, acquaintances, and strangers about trauma, grief and tragedy, confronting me over and over again with the devastating impact of the fires on people's well-being.
In our community-minded and creative part of Melbourne, groups have come together to mourn and to heal.
Armies of professionals and volunteers are poised to offer practical support, counselling and more, particularly as the weather heats up again and fears reawaken.
Much advice and education has been provided to our community about trauma, its effects on individuals and relationships, what we might experience, what support we may need in order to recover, and so on.
Together we have reflected on the impact on us as individuals, as families, and as a community.
I convinced myself that I was relatively unaffected - after all, my partner Bronte and I, through good luck rather than good management, were out of the country on Black Saturday, and returned home to find our house and property completely undamaged.
We set ourselves to the task of supporting those who had been more directly affected, and getting our house and garden better prepared for future onslaughts.
It wasn't until this summer, when we were preparing to go camping at Cape Conran National Park, that I began to notice that I was behaving in ways I had not before.
Day after day, before our holiday, I caught myself checking anxiously and repeatedly how close the bushfires had come, and were predicted to come, to our holiday spot.
Once we settled in to our campsite, I found that I was reluctant to get too close to a campfire, and that I became more relaxed when our neighbours had extinguished their fire for the night.
One evening, when Bronte lit a fire for us, the wind pushed and pulled the flames so quickly and out of nowhere that we immediately put it out and turned in early.
It occurred to me that although my relationships with family and friends had emerged unscathed, my relationship with fire (and with the north wind!) had changed substantially post Black Saturday.
With this realisation came some grief.
I began to think about my previous relationship with fire - fond memories of comfort and warmth from a winter's fire in the hearth, staring into the leaping flames and marvelling at the beauty of glowing embers, fantasizing that I could see wonderful other-worldly creatures inside.
I recalled dancing with fire as a child long ago, imagining myself able to move and grow/shrink, glow and spark as fire does, glorying in the sensual power of heat and movement.
I found myself recoiling from this memory, reluctant to reconnect to a time when I would have given myself to fire in this way.
I wondered if I would ever feel that way about fire again.
Like mourning a lover's betrayal, I cried for the loss of a relationship that may be irretrievable.
Shortly after the 2009 bushfires, I remember hearing a poem on the radio, by Peter Auty, an experienced CFA volunteer who had witnessed first-hand fires that were different from any he had seen before.
He spoke movingly about how this fire broke all the rules, how none of his training or experience had prepared him for that day.
It struck me that his relationship not only with fire, but with a world that allowed fire to behave in such an uncharacteristic and terrifying manner, had changed forever.
In reflecting on my experience, and thinking about Peter Auty's poem, it came to me that we are unaccustomed to thinking about our relationships with the non-human world as ones that matter to us, and which require the same effort and care that we give to our human loved ones.
In our failure to realize this, we may not appreciate the impact to us and the system we are embedded within, when these relationships are ruptured through trauma and/or loss.
Notions of mutual respect and reciprocity have developed some currency when we think about our relationships with nature - thanks to the efforts of ecologists, conservationists, climate change scientists/activists and the like - but we have yet to fully grapple with ideas that we routinely apply to our human relationships.
What would it take for us to acknowledge that the non-human part of our world is as significant to us, and as worthy and capable of reciprocal, respectful relationship as the human part? What would it look like to fully own the importance of - and take full responsibility for working on - our relationships with fire, with water, with the earth, the air, plants, the animal world? By what means would we attempt to apply the principles of healthy relating to how we encounter them? In acknowledging our vulnerability as partners in relationship, how might we communicate respectfully, listen actively, peacefully resolve conflict, repair relationship ruptures - and perhaps most importantly, choose non-violent ways of interacting with 'all that is'? To find adequate ways to do this, perhaps we need look no further than the indigenous peoples of this and other countries - and for us Anglos to our own her/history - to rediscover the myriad of rituals, ceremonies and techniques that enable us as humans to imaginatively engage with nature in a way that fosters truly respectful and non-violent relationships, characterised by mutuality, reciprocal obligation, and acknowledgment of the intrinsic integrity and right to life of all things.
Community circles that reconnect humans with the natural cycles and rhythms of the seasons, rituals that celebrate rites of passage (both human and non-human) and collective processes that engage the whole community in healing ourselves, our relationships with each other and with nature - provide multi-sensory and creative tools for entering into non-verbal and imaginative dialogue.
For those of us who are working with individuals, couples, families and communities to recover from the bushfires and other nature-generated traumas, maybe it's time to enlarge our definition of who is in our 'family' system, and acquaint ourselves with - or further develop in a way appropriate to our contemporary culture and community - therapeutic tools that will assist our work in facilitating relational repair, maintenance and change within the entire ecological system of which we and the clients we endeavour to help are just a small, though pivotal part.
I have drawn on both human and non-human relationships to commence healing my relationship with fire.
I think it may be an ongoing process.
Thanks to the generosity, humour, good spirit and downright cheek of the resident Cape Conran goanna, campfires, kookaburras, the magnificent ocean, and of course my friends and family!, I am beginning to re-vision a changed yet mutually respectful relationship with fire - one where I never under-estimate her power as she completes her part of the Aussie bush life/death/rebirth cycle, and remember to respectfully ask her, and express gratitude for, her generous offering of warmth and light.
It has been a year of bombardment through the media, stories from friends, acquaintances, and strangers about trauma, grief and tragedy, confronting me over and over again with the devastating impact of the fires on people's well-being.
In our community-minded and creative part of Melbourne, groups have come together to mourn and to heal.
Armies of professionals and volunteers are poised to offer practical support, counselling and more, particularly as the weather heats up again and fears reawaken.
Much advice and education has been provided to our community about trauma, its effects on individuals and relationships, what we might experience, what support we may need in order to recover, and so on.
Together we have reflected on the impact on us as individuals, as families, and as a community.
I convinced myself that I was relatively unaffected - after all, my partner Bronte and I, through good luck rather than good management, were out of the country on Black Saturday, and returned home to find our house and property completely undamaged.
We set ourselves to the task of supporting those who had been more directly affected, and getting our house and garden better prepared for future onslaughts.
It wasn't until this summer, when we were preparing to go camping at Cape Conran National Park, that I began to notice that I was behaving in ways I had not before.
Day after day, before our holiday, I caught myself checking anxiously and repeatedly how close the bushfires had come, and were predicted to come, to our holiday spot.
Once we settled in to our campsite, I found that I was reluctant to get too close to a campfire, and that I became more relaxed when our neighbours had extinguished their fire for the night.
One evening, when Bronte lit a fire for us, the wind pushed and pulled the flames so quickly and out of nowhere that we immediately put it out and turned in early.
It occurred to me that although my relationships with family and friends had emerged unscathed, my relationship with fire (and with the north wind!) had changed substantially post Black Saturday.
With this realisation came some grief.
I began to think about my previous relationship with fire - fond memories of comfort and warmth from a winter's fire in the hearth, staring into the leaping flames and marvelling at the beauty of glowing embers, fantasizing that I could see wonderful other-worldly creatures inside.
I recalled dancing with fire as a child long ago, imagining myself able to move and grow/shrink, glow and spark as fire does, glorying in the sensual power of heat and movement.
I found myself recoiling from this memory, reluctant to reconnect to a time when I would have given myself to fire in this way.
I wondered if I would ever feel that way about fire again.
Like mourning a lover's betrayal, I cried for the loss of a relationship that may be irretrievable.
Shortly after the 2009 bushfires, I remember hearing a poem on the radio, by Peter Auty, an experienced CFA volunteer who had witnessed first-hand fires that were different from any he had seen before.
He spoke movingly about how this fire broke all the rules, how none of his training or experience had prepared him for that day.
It struck me that his relationship not only with fire, but with a world that allowed fire to behave in such an uncharacteristic and terrifying manner, had changed forever.
In reflecting on my experience, and thinking about Peter Auty's poem, it came to me that we are unaccustomed to thinking about our relationships with the non-human world as ones that matter to us, and which require the same effort and care that we give to our human loved ones.
In our failure to realize this, we may not appreciate the impact to us and the system we are embedded within, when these relationships are ruptured through trauma and/or loss.
Notions of mutual respect and reciprocity have developed some currency when we think about our relationships with nature - thanks to the efforts of ecologists, conservationists, climate change scientists/activists and the like - but we have yet to fully grapple with ideas that we routinely apply to our human relationships.
What would it take for us to acknowledge that the non-human part of our world is as significant to us, and as worthy and capable of reciprocal, respectful relationship as the human part? What would it look like to fully own the importance of - and take full responsibility for working on - our relationships with fire, with water, with the earth, the air, plants, the animal world? By what means would we attempt to apply the principles of healthy relating to how we encounter them? In acknowledging our vulnerability as partners in relationship, how might we communicate respectfully, listen actively, peacefully resolve conflict, repair relationship ruptures - and perhaps most importantly, choose non-violent ways of interacting with 'all that is'? To find adequate ways to do this, perhaps we need look no further than the indigenous peoples of this and other countries - and for us Anglos to our own her/history - to rediscover the myriad of rituals, ceremonies and techniques that enable us as humans to imaginatively engage with nature in a way that fosters truly respectful and non-violent relationships, characterised by mutuality, reciprocal obligation, and acknowledgment of the intrinsic integrity and right to life of all things.
Community circles that reconnect humans with the natural cycles and rhythms of the seasons, rituals that celebrate rites of passage (both human and non-human) and collective processes that engage the whole community in healing ourselves, our relationships with each other and with nature - provide multi-sensory and creative tools for entering into non-verbal and imaginative dialogue.
For those of us who are working with individuals, couples, families and communities to recover from the bushfires and other nature-generated traumas, maybe it's time to enlarge our definition of who is in our 'family' system, and acquaint ourselves with - or further develop in a way appropriate to our contemporary culture and community - therapeutic tools that will assist our work in facilitating relational repair, maintenance and change within the entire ecological system of which we and the clients we endeavour to help are just a small, though pivotal part.
I have drawn on both human and non-human relationships to commence healing my relationship with fire.
I think it may be an ongoing process.
Thanks to the generosity, humour, good spirit and downright cheek of the resident Cape Conran goanna, campfires, kookaburras, the magnificent ocean, and of course my friends and family!, I am beginning to re-vision a changed yet mutually respectful relationship with fire - one where I never under-estimate her power as she completes her part of the Aussie bush life/death/rebirth cycle, and remember to respectfully ask her, and express gratitude for, her generous offering of warmth and light.
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