We wait for our burgers and I remark to James that this is at least the third apocalypse we've had a front row seat for. London for Lehmann Bros, France for the election of its least popular President, various riots in Paris and Rome and Florence. Also I've been in the Newcastle Earthquake and sailed through a cyclone as a kid.
Incidents like these have the same "stop all the clocks" dissociative quality of being in grief. You just quietly go through the motions of living a normal life, hoping no one notices it isn't normal and yet still being horrified that everyone else is just going about their day.
I'll have more to say about the whole process in next week's solo show when the smoke has presumably literally cleared, but seeing as I've had so many enquiries as to our safety and status -for which I am very grateful- it is worth a blog post.
Pretty much since Monday's card reading, everything has gone exactly as described. Which means we packed the cars while wearing masks at the beginning of the week. So we were ready to go in under an hour after the 1pm town meeting that Avalon and I attended. (She has also decamped to join her family, if you are wondering.) I'll have so much more to say about the various magical efforts and the journeying and the card spread and all of that which have defined a very 'professionally busy' week in the solo show. But for now, let me just say I am unbelievably grateful for all the premium members doing the intending thing, for my aunt's church back in the Hunter Valley, for my mother's network of weirdos doing their thing and for any of you out there having a crack at it on a solo basis.
It's actually working. The predicted galeforce northwesterly winds pushing the fire into town at 5am were, in fact, calmness and even a little southerly till around exactly now, with some little rain -an intention target I know some of you are working toward- when there was zero percent chance of that yesterday. It may even rain a little more, which won't stop the fire front but what it does is reduce the ember strikes starting spot fires. So keep it up.
The homestead is on the other side of the town from the direction of the fire. From a permaculture perspective, this was one of the reasons I picked it. There are several rivers between the house and the bushfire direction, and the building has survived since 1885, meaning it has lived through many fires, including the 1967 one. However, this weekend isn't a 50 year fire event, it's a 150 year one. And the house is 135.
If you've been through these sorts of events before -and I know many of you have and have sent sympathies- at this point the fog of war descends and we won't know anything for certain until we crest the rise back onto our road in a few days. Myself and Avalon and all our local friends, from about now, will hear that their home has been destroyed, that it's fine, that the town is gone, that the town is unscathed, and all the rest of it. Battle is joined down in the valley and certainty comes only when it ceases.
But we are all safe, we are extremely insured, and -I have to say- the whole process has been grimly fascinating to go through, right up to the scenario planning of what we do next, one way or the other.
You will know more when we do, sitting here in a motor lodge at and during the end of the world.