Human Rage Devastating to the World of Wildlife : The homes of many Southland residents were consumed in recent fires, but the loss is beyond words for the innocent creatures of the wilderness.

I am in a mountain cabin among the pines in Arizona. For the last few weeks I have been writing a scene in a novel about an astronomer whose father, a botanist, shows her the devastation of a forest fire. Yesterday, the character Daniella, who loves stars--the fire in the sky--had just placed her feet on the smoldering earth when the phone rang.

My husband told me there was a fire in Topanga, that quite a few of our friends were endangered and that our housemate had taken our two dogs, my two suitcases of family photos, her computer and her manuscripts and was heading down to the water. Ten minutes later a friend called from North Carolina, telling me he was watching CNN and Topanga was burning. In one moment, I teetered between deep connection and overwhelming loss.

My husband packed our little VW with 30 years of my journals, a few published books, articles and poems and very few mementos. Then, 600 miles from each other, we sat down to meditate and pray. All day friends and family phoned from across the country, and all day we kept the vigil of conversation, information and prayer.

On one side of the little altar that I hastily created, I placed a list of those I know in the fire area. As I prayed for everyone, I prayed individually for these several dozen friends and colleagues. At this moment, I know some of them, fellow writers Carolyn See and John Espey, Jackie Feather and David Seidler, have lost their homes.

On the other side of the altar is a list of the animals and trees in the area. These creatures do not have personal names so we can only say: Dear finch, rabbit, coyote, bobcat, mountain lion, snake, squirrel, spider, mouse, rat, opossum, raccoon, crow, hawk, road runner, humming bird, jay, oak, sycamore, eucalyptus, pine, manzanita.

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People ask why we live in such a precarious area, so often inundated by tides, fires and floods. We are an odd breed, those of us who live in the hills. Many of us live here because we have made a serious and essential commitment. We are trying to establish ways of life among and with other creatures. And so we put our lives on the line because we want to live in ways that promote community and foster ecological perspectives.

Still, we choose to live here while the animals suffer the consequence of our choices: Rabbits huddled against a wall not knowing where to turn away from the flames. Birds spinning crazed and confused in the hot air. Deer racing wildly; squirrels running, tails on fire, their way blocked by fire and development. These are part of our community; we have to find ways for them to live among us. Our lives, physical and spiritual, depend on it.

I think about a person who would start such fires. I wonder about the great rage and the extreme indifference that exists in this person’s psyche. I would bet this person has been completely crushed by the artificial life that is crushing all of us. The unnatural schedules, the valueless activities, the useless and meaningless treadmill of dull labor, stupefying wealth or poverty, the common round of deprivation, abuse and violence that surrounds our lives. There are people who have neither seen the stars nor a deer in the wild. They do not know our origins nor the value nor meaning of life. Trapped in a dreary, manufactured existence, they could well set fires.

A man died because he tried to save his cat. His was not a sentimental action. The human is not superior to the animal, except perhaps in our maniacal gift for devastating each other and other ways of life.

As I write, I think my cottage is still standing. Small as it is, it has been a center for myself, my family and my community: a place to gather and gain sustenance. But if I lose it with all my possessions, I will, after all, only lose a house. But the finches under the eaves, the mourning doves, the coyote, the deer, the owls, their loss is beyond words. And my loss of their presence is beyond my understanding.

Some of us live in the hills and by the sea because we are trying to learn how to live. Ironically, we do it as an act of preservation for ourselves and also for others. Perhaps there will soon come a time when we will have learned the ways of fire and water and will live with more care and less devastation, and maybe there will be a time again when the creatures of the earth will not live in exile from their homes or in such jeopardy among us.