Nature has messages for those who want to hear.
Wildfires have have shown Californians the dark side of Nature, especially how it fights back when it has reached the limits of its tolerance for human destructiveness. Today’s article shows the residents of the obliterated town of Paradise gaining strength from the healing side of Nature.
Sarah Kaplan reported at the Washington Post, “Laura Nelson was dreading this drive. It’s bad enough seeing the mailboxes for houses that no longer exist, the dusty roads lined with the blackened skeletons of trees. But the day is also bone-dry and scorching, the smoke from a distant fire casting a too-familiar pallor over the landscape. Her car bumps over rough patches of pavement — places where the asphalt was melted by vehicles engulfed in flames.
“It has been four years since Nelson navigated these roads while fleeing the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history. And still, every return to Paradise is a reminder that she can never truly go home.
“When the Camp Fire incinerated Nelson’s Northern California town, it plunged the community into a mental health crisis. Butte County already had one of the highest rates of childhood trauma in the state, and the sudden loss of home and kinship left residents at high risk of depression. The author of one study on the fire’s aftermath said survivors experienced PTSD at rates on par with veterans of war.
“They are not alone: Research increasingly shows that victims of climate change disasters are left with deep psychological wounds — from anxiety after hurricanes to surges in suicide during heat waves — that the nation’s disaster response agencies are ill-prepared to treat.
“But in the burned and battered forests near Paradise, a small program run by California State University at Chico is using nature therapy walks to help fire survivors recover.
“Drawing on the Japanese practice of ‘forest bathing,’ the community-led walks test a fraught premise: That the site of survivors’ worst memories can become a source of solace. That landscapes still threatened by ever-rising temperatures may hold a remedy to the anguish that climate change will bring. …
“After the dual ordeals of fleeing from fire and navigating an overburdened disaster bureaucracy, participants say the program has helped relieve some of their pain.
“ ‘The forest is the therapist,’ Nelson says. ‘Nature knows how to heal.’ …
“As she approaches the shaded entrance to Paradise Lake park — a rare patch of the forest left mostly untouched by fire — she feels her pulse ease ever so slightly. There is something reassuring about the sweet scent of fir needles, the cool breeze of the lake, the chatter of sparrows and squirrels.
“Suddenly, Nelson is glad she came. She needs this morning in nature, she realizes, to restore some of what she lost when Paradise burned. She yearns to feel at home again in this wounded, warming world.
“In the woods beside Paradise Lake, Blake Ellis stands amid a circle of survivors, breathing deep. As program manager of the Chico State ecotherapy program, she has guided scores of forest therapy walks. But this one feels especially freighted with meaning. …
“Ellis doesn’t know what memories they have brought to this moment. But she knows her job is to create a ‘safe container’ for their pain.
“The fire started around dawn on Nov. 8, 2018, when a faulty piece of electrical equipment sent a spark into the parched vegetation of the northern Sierra foothills. …
“The streets in Paradise weren’t designed to carry tens of thousands of evacuees at a moment’s notice. LeeAnn Schlaf saw families crammed into sedans, boats pulled by trailers, trucks carrying dogs and cats and chickens. Some people had abandoned their vehicles and started to walk. She couldn’t understand why. Then Schlaf turned onto the Skyway and was confronted by a ‘tunnel of fire. …
“After introductions, Ellis leads the forest therapy group along the lakeside trail to a flat, open stretch of ground. The water is so still it looks like a mirror, perfectly doubling the trees, the clouds, the smoke-streaked sky.
“ ‘Find a nice, cozy, comfortable spot,’ Ellis says. … ‘Begin by simply bringing your awareness to your breath. Simply noticing what it’s like to breathe.’ …
“Ellis’s goal in this moment is to help the participants feel grounded. To anchor them in a safe and peaceful present, even as they are buffeted by the traumas of their past.
“Studies have found that as many as 40 percent of people will develop post-traumatic stress disorder after a disaster, said psychologist Karla Vermeulen, deputy director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
“Survivors often remain hypervigilant, their bodies pulsing with stress hormones long after the threat has subsided. Vivid memories of the disaster can disrupt their sleep and haunt their days. Untreated, their suffering may begin to calcify into something more deep-seated and persistent. …
“In the moment when they are most in need of stability and compassion, Vermeulen said, survivors too often find themselves at the mercy of a convoluted bureaucracy that climate change has stretched increasingly thin. …
“Accessing the few resources that are available requires survivors to complete reams of paperwork, adding to their stress levels. It may take months or even years to get approved for government assistance, exacerbating peoples’ sense that they will never be safe again. …
“Years later, Schlaf still worries something will happen to her house every time she goes on vacation. She compulsively checks that the knobs on her stove are turned off. Though it was her life’s dream to live in the woods, now she is uneasy among too many trees. …
“But sitting in the sunshine beside Paradise Lake, Schlaf notices how calm she feels. She looks at the reflection of tall, dark pines quivering on the lake surface. For what feels like the first time in a long time, the forest doesn’t make her fearful.”
More at the Post, here. Hat tip: Earle.
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