Page 8 RAIN .July 1978 DISASTER VICTORS Dear Tom and Lane, , I read your description of the tragedy of fire to your home with sadness and some understanding of the feelings of loss which you must be experiencing. Your words brought back, for me, a range of emotions and thoughts which I encountered following the burning of the primary structure at what is·now the Walker Creek Community. It too burnt to the ground, leaving me and others with fewer ... far fewer ... possessions, grief, hard questions to answer, and the apparent loss of energy, materials and past labors. The hardest questions seemed to come at some times distant from the immediate event ... most connected with.the WHY of it. If fire is cleansing something, what is being removed ... if it is testing us, are we equal to the test ... if it means new beginnings, where do we start ... if we see this as a transformation, why is it so hard to remove the scars of a charred remains ... if our values are being tested, which ones do we reaffirm. In passing from the immediate losses, there came the activities reaffirming life ... the planting of herbs ·in the ashes ... the symbolic placement of remnants from the fire into the garden ... the building of temporary shelter ... the understandings of value in friendships ... the ass~ssment of resources remaining ... the awareness that no one was physically hurt ... The greatest loss seems that of the impetus for creativity through externals ... and the greatest gain, in time, that of b,eing able to create in the face of the temporal nature of reality and ultimately in the face of death. Your words were written sensitively and bravely. Indeed, the loss of a home to fire can be as devastating as the loss of a close personal relationship.with a family member, for it strikes against our security, and our dreams. LETTERS I have tried to think of something to send you other than ··my thoughts and worcls. Enclosed are two things which are reminders to me of a successful resolution of my experience with loss and fire. The metal Judaic item was one which I found in the ashes which has reminded me of its previous , owner who had given labor and energy to our structure, but more, the strength of his spirituality. The spirit survives. The "disaster victor" sign was given to me by a close friend. I believe that the meta-image of·being a disaster victor rather than a disaster victim has been a helpful one in viewing myself and the future. With many best wishes for your gains in the face of loss, Bob Ness P.O. Box 81 Mt. Vernon, WA 98273 Thanks to everyone for all the good energy you've sent our way-.it's buoyed our spirits and hammers. We set the new ridgepole and had a topping-out celebration last week. Feedback has been ofa heavy winter everywhere in the network. Jerry Friedberg (Arrakis Propane Conversions) in Arkansas, George Mokray in Boston, and the new Zenda at the Tassajara Zen Center have all suffered major fires recently, and two of the founders of Citizens Against Toxic Sprays were killed in a house fire. Knowing disasters, we do become disaster victors all, cleansed and stronger for the more intense times ahead. The forests are turning a vibrant green with new and healthy growth. -TB MORE ON FEDERAL FUNDING Dear RAIN, I can't understand how your magazine can continue to favor having the State and Federal government pay for energy conservation and solar energy research. Do you really want the citizens to relinquish their rights to spend their money as they please to the government? In your May issue the letter of Robert Judd pvblished under the title Cal A.T. Grants talks about awarding grants. Judd says of the money, "The limited funds should go to those people who have little or no access to venture capital: individual inventors, small businesses and community groups rather than corporations and think tanks." This s.entence is worth pondering. Who are.these people who have no access to venture capital and who need·our tax money? Has the government passed laws against a certain group so that they can't deal directly with their fellow citizens, but instead need the intervention of the tax collector? If this were so it would be a tyranny against 'both sides. Of course, this isn't so. We don't have any such laws. Any citizen is free to enlist the backing of another if he can convince the backer of the project.·I would guess that Judd wants to hdp people who, so far, feel that they.haven't been good at convincing others. This is a sign to me that Judd ·may be a sympathetic, nice guy. The problem arises when we find that it is our money he will give away; and we may not agree with his judgment and sympathies. This is very bad. A horrible • •consequence of Judd's approach must be the feeling of those his group rejects, among which there must be many people he has classified as not having access to venture capital and who, it now turns out, don't have access to the group who look after the group that doesn't have access. This might be tough to take! Perhaps another layer of the bureaucracy helps this poor fellow! I was also puzzled by Judd's comments on salary. He says:· "Our review team was unsympathetic to salary rates greater th~n $10-$-15 an hour ($20,000-$33,000 a year)."
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