Who is Response-able?
by Donna Henes • Exotic Brooklyn

When Katrina struck, I was away, teaching in a remote rural venue, and because I had no access to media of any sort, I had no idea of the vast devastation she caused. My first glimpse of the staggering damage was 5 days later on the TV in the motel where I stayed on my way back home. Needless to say, I was horrified, less by the storm itself than by the massive disregard shown by our government for those people who were so brutally ignored in their agony, and also for our beautiful planet.

Now that I am home, my email box has been exploding with letters from caring folks all around the country who ask what they can do to help beyond making a monetary donation, and how they can deal emotionally and spiritually with what has happened on the Gulf Coast. How can we understand the enormity and importance of this situation? What can we hold onto in this terrible time to have it make sense?

I am also receiving lots of letters bright with religious and New Age-y advice to just trust in God’s greater plan. I agree that we always need to look at the bigger picture with an expanded perspective, but I think that blaming the divine is begging the question. Though I am not privy to God/dess’s master plan, I can't help but think that this horrible state of affairs is primarily man made and perpetuated.

This event, in all its permutations and all of its horrible consequences, was predicted well in advance. For years, scientists have warned us about the increasing destructive power of such storms, which are brought about by the heated waters of the oceans due to global warming. Their pleas to address the problem have been completely ignored– even pooh poohed by the powers that be.

Mr. Bush stated publicly, "Nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee," while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane Katrina passed over. But federal funding for safety measures in the Gulf was slashed– to fund the destruction of a completely different Gulf half way around the world.

When the inevitable Big One did strike and the levee did indeed not hold, it unleashed a flood of terror and tragedy on those folks who were already living in substandard conditions. But the initial official response showed no urgency to come to the aid of the suffering. Had this same disaster occurred in East Hampton; Kennebunkport, Maine; Marblehead, MA; Malibu or some other rich seaside town, you better believe help would have been dispatched immediately. Don't tell me that we couldn't have air lifted in food and water. Just last month, the NASA shuttle managed to deliver supplies to the space station, for heaven’s sake!

What’s more, while the army managed to get armed tanks in place rather quickly to the battle the "gangs" of looters and protect private property, apparently they couldn’t use the same roads for relief trucks– an action reveaing its real priorities. Katrina has caused us to look at our country’s deeply institutionalized class system and racism with new eyes. And most of us were appalled at what we saw. Barbara Bush shockingly articulated this cruel indifference. I quote from AP, So many of the people in the arena here were underprivileged anyway, so this is working out very well for them.

After all my venting, I have not yet answered those questions about what we can do and how we can process what has been happening. But there are answers. Certainly we need to respond to this emergency in every practical helpful way we can, and I urge us all to reach out with donations of cash, goods, services and time. This is truly a there-by-the-grace-of-good-it-could-have-been-me- situation. It offers us an opportunity to reach out in compassion and concern to our siblings in the Family Tree of Humanity.

But it is equally important that we work on preventative measures. It is crucial, in fact. Everything, but everything, depends upon it. If Katrina was anything, she was a Gorgon Goddess trying to get our attention, whipping us with Her rage when we didn’t respond to Her warnings. She was the Amazon Fury messenger for Gaia, Mother Earth, Mother Nature. What the hell will it take? She berates us. How many towns, people, animals, rivers have to die before we take the enormity of our ecological mess seriously– and take steps to heal it?

It seems to me that the best way to move forward from this horrible event is to accept the huge lessons that surround it and to assume some responsibility for acting for change. Before blaming the officials for not being responsive to the cause or the effects of the events of that last week, we need to ask ourselves if we have been response-able. Have we answered Gaia’s pleas for rescue? Are we part of the rising tide of consumerism, waste, greed, insularity, racism? What are we doing personally to shore up the levees?

We all know what needs to be done environmentally, politically, financially, culturally, communally, personally. We just have to do it. We need to take responsibility for doing what needs to be done. Being response-able is empowering. The more we do, the more we have confidence that we can do more. Response-ability is spirit in action. It means knowing what we know, speaking our truth, walking our talk.

Let us all be first responders.

Donna Henes, Urban Shaman, is the author of numerous books, a CD, and a quarterly journal, Always In Season: Living in Sync with the Cycles. She lectures worldwide and works with individuals and groups to create personally relevant rituals for all of life's transitions. Contact: Mama Donna’s Tea Garden & Healing Haven, PO Box 380403, Exotic Brooklyn, NY 11238-0403. (718) 857-1343, www.DonnaHenes.net