One year after the fire
This morning dawned at Monan’s Rill with a few pink clouds in a clear blue sky. As the sun rose, drops of yesterday’s rain still dripped from oak leaves, and clung to the tips of the new green grass that has germinated in the past few days.
It has been one year since the Glass Fire burned through Monan’s Rill with all its fiery force on the morning of September 28, 2020, transforming the land, the community, and all of our lives.
The days surrounding that hot, windy firestorm felt nothing like the pleasant post-rain sunshine and cool autumn breeze that surrounds us today, but the fire is still ever-present around us. The smell of burned wood meets our noses as the sun warms the rain-moistened char of downed limbs and stumps that ignited a year ago, smoldered for days, and continue to litter the ground.
Capacious empty holes yawn where homes once held generations of community members in all the beautiful messiness of their lives. Acres of formerly dense forest have been reduced to swaths of jagged stumps as our logger cuts down Douglas fir trees killed by the fire and hauls them to the mill to be transformed into lumber.
Yet just beyond the salvage logging area, native plants like Yerba Santa, roughleaf aster, and velvety goldenrod are thriving, their seeds, foliage, and blooms brought to life by the rejuvenating force of the fire.
And close to the land’s highest point near Diamond Mountain stands a vibrant living testament to what is possible with caring and appropriate land stewardship: the 6 acres that we burned in a prescribed fire in 2019 stayed healthy and untouched in the wildfire of 2020. The trees, ferns, and native grasses in that area continue to thrive while the heavily-torched, browned and blackened surrounding areas have barely begun to recover.
As all of us who are part of Monan’s Rill reflect on the fire and all that has transpired in the past year, our feelings and experiences are complex and paradoxical. We feel grief and gratitude, anger and sadness, turmoil and peace. We mourn all that can never be replaced, appreciate the ways that we continue to be held by the land and community, and embrace the openings for emergence and transformation that the fire has created.
Though there is so much more experienced and felt than can ever be documented, a few of us offer these words and images to mark this important anniversary:
One year ago today we woke up for the last time in our home. Our homes.
If I had ever replaced my candles I would light one!
Life continues to be grief-stricken, awkward, blessed, tiring, fragmented, and sweet. All of that.
I’m thinking tenderly of the community of people we held dear, who made up our lives and our sense of possibility – those who are by our sides trying to rebuild and those who have moved on. Trying to read the message underneath this sense of painful but also understandable scattering.
Giving thanks to all the helpers and givers and mentors and guides and companions I’ve found over this past year. I don’t see many in person! But I know you are there.
And the deer and the squirrels and the steller’s jays and the acorn woodpeckers and the oaks and the manzanita and the wild grasses are there. Giving thanks to the mountain.
– Amy
A year ago tonight, we had two of three cars
“Go-bags Loaded” and we
Believed our most “precious items”
safely packed, just in case
A year ago, tonight we
Watched the winds and fire cameras on our devices
And began considering the real possibility
That the fire in the Napa Valley might come
Our way….
A year ago, we were “whole”
22 adults living or about to be living in all our homes,
We were on the cusp of agreeing to a new financial structure
And it appeared that we had prepared our homes
So that they could be defended against a fire…
A year ago we had no idea what was coming our way
How each of our lives would be forever changed
Of what was lost that mattered
And what was lost that didn’t mean a thing
A year year later
We are oh so much smarter and wiser,
Oh so much more appreciative of what we had
And so very much reduced in numbers
And yet, something magical has remained
That out of the ashes of what was
Are very real “life nuggets” that remain
And a bond….even between those that left
That no fire could destroy
A year later, the land remains
Scarred but healing
The wildlife is returning
The forests will regenerate
Not as quickly as the grasses did.
But this time…we will assist and take
The wisdom that was seared into us…
And share what we’re learning
For future generations in this watershed
How it can be done
With love, sweat, and yes…tears.
– Ken
Most of all I miss the beautiful Tracy Yurt, built with love. A wonderful space to have lived in. Such a calming home on the land I call home, Monan’s Rill.
– Sue
The biggest impact to me was the loss of six people all within a few months of each other. We already knew they were all going to be moving on sometime in the next few years, but having that loss all at the same time on top of the loss of trees, house, and all possessions was a lot. The spirit of the community remained and I felt blessed for the buildings that did not burn because once I knew what had survived I felt pretty certain that the community would survive. I have always believed that the land would call the people together who were meant to be here and I continue to believe that. Although the structure of it changed, I did not lose my home.
— Linda
Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the glass fire. I don’t know how to write about this past year. It is clear that I am still very much in the middle of a story that I don’t really know how to tell. That has always been the purpose of all the photo documentation— it’s the closest to a story that I can share. I took this photo tonight of a volunteer sunflower growing in the footprint of the barn, specifically where the milking room was. And I guess this year has been full of finding beauty, life and hope in the most unexpected, impacted places.This flower still made its way to life after the big equipment came and scooped everything away. Wendell Berry wrote, “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” This is a sacred place. This is a place of heartache, of healing, of home. What is clear to me about the story I am in is that the setting is here, on this land. The characters and plot will develop and unravel and change and I will lose my place, reread the same line over and over again, get paper cuts, leave water marks and break in the spine….but the Where is the part of the story that I understand. I feel so lucky to have even one true part revealed.
— e
Throughout my adult life I’ve always tried to remember, appreciate and understand how lucky I have been in this life. Since the fire that appreciation and understanding has only rooted itself more firmly into my existence. I’m thankful and honored to be such a fortunate human being.
— Bill
At the beginning of this anniversary day, several of us gathered on Zoom in the darkness before dawn to sit in silence, together and alone, guided by Amy with a koan and a poem:
____
After the great fire in 1374 at the Engaku-ji Temple, scholars came to see what had happened to the great library. The teacher, standing amidst the ashes and rubble, said that nothing had been destroyed. “What are you talking about?” the scholars and students asked. He held up his hand and said,
“The covers were burned but you can still hold the teachings in your hands.”
____
“The Singing Bowl”
by Malcolm Guite
Begin the song exactly where you are.
Remain within the world of which you’re made.
Call nothing common in the earth or air.
Accept it all and let it be for good.
Start with the very breath you breathe in now.
This moment’s pulse, this rhythm in your blood.
And listen to it, ringing soft and low.
Stay with the music, words will come in time.
Slow down your breathing. Keep it deep and slow.
Become an open singing bowl, whose chime
is richness rising out of emptiness.
And timelessness resounding into time.
And when the heart is full of quietness
Begin the song exactly where you are.
____
We are all so grateful for everyone who has supported and accompanied us on the journey of this past year, and we look forward to continuing to walk with you as we rebuild and reimagine our relationships to each other and the land and the future of this community.