Responding to the LA Fires

When We Lift Each other, We All Rise

Hello Friends,

This is not the newsletter I was planning on writing. I am distraught about the fires in LA, where I have family, friends and colleagues. Some are evacuated, some near the evacuation zones and poised to flee, some are not in the way of the fires but choking on the smoke.

So instead of talking about ritual and spirituality in our every day lives, I want to remind us all to help each other, every day, crisis or not. To work together. To be generous. To give of our time, our dollars and other resources, and our love and care for each other.

Because we are all part of the web of lives that weaves this extraordinary planet. Because the earth is round, not flat, and what we give out comes back around eventually. Because when we lift each other, we all rise.

Some Places to Donate or Volunteer Right Now to Help With the LA Fires:

The Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation is asking for support to buy fire fighters supplies like hydration backpacks, emergency shelters and tools.

Global Giving has opened a specific fund for wildfire relief to support local groups involved with communities and first responders. (Global Giving has a 5-star rating from Charity Navigator, so you know what you give is used well.)

Mutual Aid LA is compiling a directory of resources for those affected by the fires and windstorms. You can donate directly to help with the directory, or pick a group to assist.

California Community Foundation channels funds to local organizations helping with wildfire relief and recovery.

Pasadena Humane Society houses pets dislocated or lost in the fires, and reunites them with their owners wherever possible.

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“To live in California mean[s] to understand that disaster could strike at any instant, which is to say that there is nothing we can count on, nothing that will guarantee safe passage through the world. …It is something like an acceptance, or even an embrace, of everything we cannot and will never know. For me, such a dynamic is essential in connecting us to place, to landscape; it is a crucible in which belonging is forged.” [my emphasis] —David Ulin, “It’s Tearing Me Up Not to Be in LA Right Now,” New York Times, 9 January 2025

For author and English professor David Ulin, a central lesson of life in Southern California and existence in general is embracing the fact that we never know what life will bring—no matter how much we plan and hope. That embrace, he writes, is essential to belonging to a place. In other words, we cannot truly be part of a landscape without giving up the fiction that we humans are somehow in charge of life.

Read that again: We cannot truly belong in any place without giving up the fiction that we are in charge of life. That does not mean giving up or giving in; it means embracing the unknown, the beauty and the pain, the glory and the grief. And helping others in that journey too.

Read Ulin’s full essay here.

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Please, be generous in helping lift your fellow humans and this planet. Not just today, but every day. (Take the late President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalind as your example: remember them building houses for Habitat for Humanity into their 90s!)

There is always something we can do to help others. When we lift each other, we all rise.

Blessings, Susan