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| Virgin of Guadalupe |
Ashes to Ashes
A week ago, my Beloved and I took a much needed holiday up to Ashland, Oregon, where I’d lived for five years in my 20’s – a town of great healing, art, and coming of age for me personally and professionally.
We so looked forward to our five days at a retreat hotel, replete with in-room mineral bathtub, and a pool. I’d needed a break from the fire stew-pit of the High Sierras we’ve been living in for the past six weeks, ever since the first of the big fires lapped up to the edge of our little town, keeping us on evacuation alert.
So, yes, we looked forward to a poolside vacation in Ashland, where the air quality forecast was clear sailing. But the Goddess had other ideas.
At about 11am our first morning we were enjoying a hot tub soak in our room. I was chewing my way through Frank Herbert’s Dune, diving into spice, spaceworms and sci-fi when we heard people shouting and yelling in Spanish. I hopped out of the bath, looked out the front door to see the staff running, and saw a gigantic smoke plume tsunami heading our way, rising up and unfurling toward us at an alarming speed. “Grab your stuff, we have to get out NOW.” Keith leaped out of the tub, and with clothes (barely) on our backs, and keys, phone, purse – we ran to the car.
I’d thought for a split second – “Grab my Tarot cards? My night guard [for my teeth]?” Funny, the things you value when you can bring nothing. I then thought, “What are you doing Erin? Drop everything and get out NOW,” and left everything. In the parking lot, I marveled that a few of the other guests were dawdling – barely getting on the go.
Keith and I headed north on a frontage highway as sirens blared and cars began being diverted. Within a minute, the Interstate and that road itself were blocked and closed, meaning we would not have been able to move for the next 24 to 48 hours if we hadn’t acted so fast.
Having nowhere to go and our heads barely on straight, we headed north. Rattled, we remembered mention of a winery that a young woman mentioned to us the night before while dining outside eating Vietnamese pho. We needed a plan, any plan, so off to the vineyards we drove. There, a celestial angelic server tended to us and gave us a stiff pour of Albariño while we collected our thoughts. “Let's get to the coast, we’ll be safer there at least.”
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| At the vineyards, pondering our next move |
This was the day of the apocalyptic orange skies in the Bay Area – everything black as tar along the north coast as well. Safe, and simultaneously depressed and happy to stick our feet in the smoky ocean – for two days we ate bad diner food and huddled together in our gray, not-holiday motel digs until we could assess the damage back in Ashland.
Our hotel manager was great – staying in touch as the fires lapped against the road burning near the Inn and flattening 600-plus homes between Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, Medford. No power or water, yet miraculously, our lodging was spared.
After two days, we decided to try to get back to retrieve our items and started driving north back to Oregon. We came to a roadblock – the very highway we'd come over on was now engulfed by yet another fire, so we turned around. A 2.5 hour trip turned into a 6.5 hour route back south, through Humboldt County, then east and up I-5 through Mount Shasta – a typically beautiful drive that has never been drearier. Poor majestic Mount Shasta, hidden behind a smokescreen, nowhere to be seen off the ashen highway.
Staying one night at an Ashland sister property while we fetched our things, it was beyond heartbreaking to hear of homes and families now in shelters, with many Latinx communities and small town haunts I loved burned to the ground. We were let through the police line to fetch our luggage and drove the weary hours home to California. Back in our mountains, we were grateful to arrive to safety, albeit with a local Air Quality Index of 485.
Just. Wow.
We spent the next couple of days – indoors of course – decompressing and in contemplation. What are we being shown, we asked the Divine. Clarity always arising… Remember…
1. You will always know exactly what to do in the moment.
a. we knew when to flee
b. we knew where to drive
c. we knew where to go next
2. My work as a spiritual teacher, counselor, and intuitive is exactly what I am supposed to be focused on. I am here for you, clients, students, readers – individually and as a group. This is the best way for me to use my life force and it feels great. No stress, being of service in the Virgo-pure way, sitting in the flames with you.
3. See number one above, repeat.
Fire purifies. Ash purifies. Symbolically, let it cleanse your heart. Let it point you to the Truth.
I do not wish these fires on anyone. I do not wish for other creatures to die, to lose their homes, to feel fear and pain. At the same time, I am completely aware that this is part of the Great Unfolding, and it is all happening as exactly as it is meant to.
You will be guided to make the changes, make the efforts to alter your reality and our collective reality in the way that that naturally arises for you – knowing that it is perfect exactly as it is. And again, you will always know exactly what to do, in the moment. There is only the Here and Now. Presence.
In this time of the new moon, remember that Virgo is purity. She is held by Nothing. She wants for Nothing. And thus She has, and is, Everything.
Unto yourself, as the Self. You will always be okay no matter what.
Do you doubt?
Go deeper, go further.
Stay there. And purify.
Erin Reese, M.S. is a contemporary spiritual teacher, author and guide. A modern mystic with over thirty years of experience, Erin Reese offers incisive, practical intuitive readings to her clients worldwide. She is a counselor, guide and mentor to those seeking an alternative to traditional psychotherapy or business coaching. Erin also offers non-dual meetings and retreats on embodied liberation and freedom from suffering.
