I hope you’re all having a great autumn so far.  For those of us in Northern California, it’s an unfortunate reality that wildfires have returned, and have forced a great many of us to evacuate, or lose power for days because of PG&E.  These are friends, family, and coworkers who are fleeing these fires, not knowing if their houses will be still be there when they return.  

 

For me, smelling the wildfire smoke in my home fills me with an angry sense of Deja Vu…because nothing has changed since the megafires of last year, and the year before.  This is the new normal of our lives.

 

We're learning how fragile a centralized power grid really is, we're learning the importance of repairing the water cycle, and we're learning how desperately we need to respect ecology in our day to day lives, and in our government.

 

 

Thankfully, there are centuries old solutions to what seems to be an impossible crisis.  These are solutions used by Indigenous People, Ecologists, Foresters, and nature itself.