It has been more than three weeks now and Australia is still burning. I was in a state of agitation and edginess before they started and did not know why - then at the first days of the fires I understood it was this incident.
It is my fourth year in Sydney and I already know that we have fires every year and the city gets the smoke for a few days. Nobody takes that as an extraordinary event here. When I told my friends that I feel this one is different they all thought I think so because I am a newbie Australian. Turned out it was not the case. Sydney is now under smoke for three weeks. Every day we wake up to a greenish sky, the sun looming behind a thick filter of smoke - the light turning into an unnatural yellowish orange around 16:00 which feels like its already sunset time in a summers day. There is very strong smell of burning wood 24/7 and everybody wears masks. Even in the big city everyone is aware now that something serious is happening.
And it is not about Sydney - it is about an immense area of nature burning - some news resources say it is four times bigger than the amazon fires. Koalas, who were announced as practically extinct before, are already expected to go extintinct in their natural environment after this event and we don't know what the aftermath will be for many other animal and plant species.
My psyche is in mourning. Can't help feeling that way. and I know this feeling very well. It tells me it is not going to end here. And not just here in Australia, because:
It seems like Australia will be one of the countries that get the effects of climate change earlier than many other places. But the energy of the planetary chain of climate change is accelerating. The change in the magnitude of all natural disasters for worse are a sign. I feel like every government who is subject to it is trying to prevent panic and opposition and they are aware of what is coming. While we get caught in the destiny of show monkeys like Trump and others, something much more serious is hitting us right now. I think we have to shift the central focus of our visions and clairvoyance because all political issues that are to come will only be the outcomes of climate change (geographical shift of liveable areas), water scarcity, war on fossil fuels, immigration and rising nationalism. Even politics itself will change into something we can not anticipate by just focusing on the flow of current events. We have to focus on what THAT change will be. Sometimes I sound like too much of a pessimist even to myself but, I know that things have come and passed the point of no return.
Love to all
Wow! What a powerful post Ernie. Thank you for your words about Australia and her horrible fires right now and the problems facing Sydney, her people and the animal world. Thank you for reminding us of the broader picture. Americans tend to forget the world does not revolve around themselves . We are facing a big crisis politically and our leader is a threat to fabric our national (and the world due to his actions and misdeeds regarding the environment and to peoples of all nations) but we are only a puzzle piece n a very large and fragile world.
Your thought to shift our focus contains much wisdom.
Over the past few weeks I have noticed a surge (no, a tidal wave really) of media articles about the environment and the crisis we are facing. Dire predictions from the experts and in a variety of areas of concern. My mind has taken note and as each new article and study is published I have found myself whispering "another one?"
It is not a coincidence. This tsunami of climate catastrophe messages is happening for a purpose. I believe it is becoming a drum beat, like one found in a drum circle. The circle is getting larger and each beat is finally being played together, separate beats creating one united song. The purpose of the song is to reach everyone, to sing to to the souls of earth's people. It is a spiritual message.
The drums were still beating, persistent and
unchanging. Their sound was no longer a separate
thing from the living village. It was like the pulsation of
its heart. It throbbed in the air, in the sunshine, and even
in the trees and filled the village with excitement.
— from Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
This is what is happening right now.
Here is the most recent article I could find on the current situation of the horrible wildfires near Sydney. The fires are apparently too big to put out and are located just an hour north of Sydney.
Canada and the US are sending firefighters. But truly, how much at this point can they do? This is apocalyptic and beyond devastating. Basically the the fires are on the entire coastline of new South Wales which is over 1,328 miles in length. Compare that to the entire coastlines of Washington, Oregon and California combined at 1293 miles in length. This doesn't include what is burning in Queensland north of NSW. These nearly 150 fires in Australia go inland a great deal too and surround Sydney on all sides.
As of a few days ago, 10% of NSW national parks and 20% of the World Heritage Blue Mountains have been burnt.
@erkmen-savaskan, I am holding you, the other members on our site from Australia and all Australian people, animals and nature in love and light. God Bless Australia.
Even politics itself will change into something we can not anticipate by just focusing on the flow of current events. We have to focus on what THAT change will be.
I absolutely agree with this point, and that's why I've long been writing on this site that social changes coming in the future will proceed at exponential rates. Climate change is already proceeding exponentially, so we can expect to see the same in culture and politics from here on out. But this view does not have to be pessimistic. Exponential changes in complex systems are also known as phase shifts, and within phase shifts, even a slight change in any given variable can drastically change the entire outcome. So any nudge towards a more positive trajectory can bring about the more beautiful world we all yearn for.
Thank you, Ernie, for sharing your intuition about these fires in Australia. I have family there and the evacuations I saw for that area have happened already. While reading your post, the comments you made about governments resonated with me. There are changes coming in governments due to climate change and our struggles to survive. Show monkeys like the orange one are not the story even though they shock and appall us. While we fear them and the impact of their tragic, self-deluded decisions, they are not the end game. The end game is dealing with climate change. Peace and love to you Down Under.
It is still happening! Right now extreme heat is taking place, around 105 degrees in some areas of NSW with fires continuing out of control.
I hit the like button, but you know what I mean. I worry about my family dealing with the tremendous heat and smoke from the fires.
I can't believe how long this has been happening. May your family members be safe and healthy and may the fires end quickly.
It just gets worse.
Pick a "C" word. Catastrophic, Cataclysmic, Calamity, they all fit.
4,000 fled to beach as emergency siren warning blares. No way in or out as town burns in Mallacoota, Victoria. There are 10 fires burning in this region, 3 of which have been burning for over a month.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/30/australia/australia-mallacoota-beach-fire-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
Omg, @Lovendures. This is heartbreaking. Thank you for posting so we can send healing and love and all the protection we can channel to them.
It gets worse, and worse. First the good news:
Mogo zookeepers save animals from bushfires but now face another threat
Other than that, it looks as if the worst is yet to come.
Two of the most populous states in Australia, NSW and Victoria are in a state of emergency due to bushfires. In my home state Victoria this is the first time a State of Disaster has ever been declared. It is for the eastern region of the state. In total the bushfires are burning in an area as large as Belgium. This does not include 3 other states, which are also experiencing bushfires. The scale of the devastation is immense, and evacuations are not proceeding according to plan due to the destruction, road closures and fuel shortages. Seven people have died, and 17 are missing. It is estimated that 30% of the Koala population has been wiped out in NSW.
Although I am a city dweller and well out of harm's way, I am emotional as I write this. Like Ernie, I have had a feeling of dread since the start of spring. Several weeks ago, I was sitting in the car at a red light when I saw the intersection briefly darkened by the passing shadow of a phoenix. I wasn't sure how to interpret this, but in hindsight I think it may have been about the fires. Perhaps, like the phoenix, Australia will rise from the ashes, better, angrier and wiser.
I am thinking about all those in harm's way around the globe. @erkmen-savaskan you are not a pessimist, you see things clearly and thank you for sharing your views.
@villager. Dear friend, I feel for you from the depths of my soul. When I first read about it, I could not stop crying. My husband and I held each other, all from thinking about what you all are going through. Please know we are with you, we are praying for you and for your dear country, for the people, the land, the animals. We send our love and pray for your protection.
While you are the first country to get hit like this, no place in this world will be spared the dreadful impacts of climate change -- the fires, the storms, floods, pestilence, food shortages, winds. And governments are not prepared.
Over half a billion animals have burned.
Koala Bears are now "functionally extinct"
Here is a Magpie singing fire engine sounds
(credit Gregory Andrews of Newcastle, Australia)
the heart is wrenched
What a photo. And the Magpie is just haunting. It made my 23 year old daughter cry.
We have no idea. I can not comprehend 1/2 a billion...anything let alone animals .
I will continue to pray for Australia. It will become part of my daily prayers now. Not just when I think about the people and animals ad land.
I am so sorry for what everyone is going through there right now.
@jeanne-mayell, thank you. The heartbreaking crux of the matter is that we are reaping the 'rewards' from an era that saw nature, animals and humans as 'assets' to be exploited. We know now where this ends, and our politicians are mostly being wilfully blind - perhaps because it does not benefit them to see things any other way. Every time we vote in Australia, I am astounded that the (neo-) liberal party wins.
I believe that our fires are closely linked to how indigenous history, culture and voices are routinely dismissed. Indigenous land management traditions in particular were never taken seriously. I think that it is no coincidence I that we are experiencing catastrophic fires at the same time as our government blithely dismisses the Uluru Statement from the Heart - a request to recognise Australia's indigenous people in its constitution, and begin a process of truth telling. Ernie has mentioned a need to grapple with Australia’s history of indigenous oppression before, and I agree. I think that the same is true of the US and Canada. I don’t mean to lecture anyone here, this state of affairs fills me with sadness. I also confess that I need to educate myself. I have some books I have been meaning to read - an especially relevant one today is ‘The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia’.
Governments are not prepared, and I am not sure they will be. We have been feeling the effects of climate change for a long time, what we have been seeing in the news globally is just the tip of the iceberg. Communities will have to step in where governments fail.
@unk-p, there are no words that can do this catastrophe justice. Half a billion.
I can post many pictures and many articles to show the extent of the catastrophe has come to since my first post here but you all are reading them now. 500 million animals died. Irreplacable ancient forests, which never burn due to the humidity they harbor, are burning. The beautiful habitat of this beautiful and fragile country is devestated. And it is not stopping yet.
Australia is experiencing massive evacuations she never has seen in history. And never the least, people are dying. What is happening with the moneymonger right wing government is what will happen with their "brothers" (they are patriarchal aren't they ? ) in the rest of the world. The attempted inhouse or international public relations tricks and denial - I have to say this - turns my stomach. The ignorance, rudeness, disrespect to human values attached to it is an example of human failure.
On the other hand, if the volunteers who are real heroes were not there, this crisis would have been much bigger now. No matter what anybody says. What a dicothomy :
The catastrophe here is not just what is happening to Mother Nature. The real catastrophe is human kind itself. The hubris and arrogance, the selfishness and greed - the nature of our kind ? - is making us the catastrophic infliction itself. The crisis of human kind is not just political today. It is ethical and this in an existential dimension. Our crisis is about deciding WHAT we are : a parasitic, expansionist, aggressive and greedy species that is set to invade other planets as well or, a kind, constructive, nourishing and compassionate one which is AWARE ? What is setting Australia ablaze today will occur in other places of the Earth in different forms. I am sure about it now. I see pictures of it in my visions everyday. Asia and Africa. The Americas. ... How are we going to confront it when hundreds of millions will have to be "evacuated" and a global emergency in a scale never seen before emerges ? Are we going to close our borders ? Use weapons ? use the situation for our own "national" benefit to make profits out of it ? Will our conscience allow us to consider ourselves more privileged than the ones who are not as lucky and let them perish? Are we going to go to war ? Leave Earth and go to Mars ? OR will we come back to our senses, roll up the sleeves and start work for a better world and much much better human kind ?
The dices are up in the air and are about to fall to show us what will be. It is NOW if we want to have an initiative.
My visions tell me that pain will teach us if we survive. I hope I'm wrong. I really do.
The Earth speaks to me here, it wants to speak to everyone now. Before it starts taking its own precautions as a living being, it is making a huge statement to remind us that we are dependent on it - dependent on what we are attempting to kill. We need a massive movement. And not just in patches here and there. We need a massive movement in the entire planet. Because this planet is bound to become what we are.
My heart goes out to all of you so very,very much.
I have been following the news on the catastrophic bushfires (our news in the U.S. has called them-apocalyptic- using the very biggest newspaper font headline since Christmas) with such heartfelt sorrow and empathic pain.
I have extended family friends in Melbourne/Sidney and just the horrific air quality had me alarmed. It was 11 times worse than it had ever been in our news).
But the horrendous deaths of the koalas was more than i could bear. I had so much happening in my own family helping husband, kids, brother through small to big surgeries that I focused my energies there out of necessity. Now, that they are home and healing before more procedures my already opened heart almost can't bear any more oain and suffering or fear of loss.
But like @jeanne-mayell and @lovendures, I am refocusing now to include my long distance non-local energies to all that is needed to change whatever is needed to change most.
I do not currently see that a change in the US, UK, or Australian leaders would create the change we need to see--now. I think our chaos has only just begun, so i am asking for dreams and visions and my angels to speak to me in any and all ways and to surround all of Australia, New Zealand and everyone experiencing a fiery summer to be surrounded by all future and heavenly realms of light with whatever is most needed--now!!
Deepest compassion and energies of love, angelic energies of light and healing to the hearts and souls of all of you and may those from any level, any kingdom, any state of being be brought forward and upward to true peace that is beyond our own beings understanding, to also work to save the people or animal or natural kingdoms of these great lands.
Blessings, power,strength to all of you from all of us here.
?????
They are expecting Saturday to be a very bad day with awful weather conditions.
"The grim forecasts come as the fires cause tens of thousands of Australians to evacuate and crews to struggle to contain the damage. New South Wales alone was ablaze with 137 fires as of midnight Friday local time, the southeastern Australian state’s Rural Fire Service reported, adding that more than 2,000 firefighters are working throughout the night.
Hours earlier, the group urged people in the fires’ paths to “leave tonight before conditions worsen tomorrow morning.” But for some, officials say, it’s too late to evacuate. Authorities in Victoria — where Premier Daniel Andrews declared a state of disaster and said 28 people are missing — are advising residents in several areas to shelter indoors."
Kangaroo Island was a particular concern Friday for South Australia Fire Chief Mark Jones, who said there were about 150 people deployed to fight fires there as flames broke through containment lines. A blaze of more than 50 square miles was “burning out of control” in scrub within the island’s Flinders Chase National Park, he said.