Hi, it's Elise Lunan host of Pulling the Thread. This is the solo episode with just me, which I've started doing once a month. I'm recording this one on January 17th, and I'll be reflecting on and processing what many of us have been experiencing since the fires began in Los Angeles.

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Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. Hi, it's Elise Lunan, host of Pulling the Thread.

On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we're here.

My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant

tiny seeds of awareness so that we might all collectively learn and grow.

Hi friends. Well, by the time you listen to this, I'm hoping to be back home. But for now, I am

sitting on the floor of my hotel room. I did not expect or plan

to be in a hotel room, as you can imagine, for almost two weeks. But this is life, so much that we can't

anticipate or prepare for. And yes, people have very graciously offered us empty bedrooms,

but we have three cats. And as it were, my oldest got the flu. And so I felt like maybe bringing

the chaos to other people wasn't necessarily the right move. I've learned a lot, I have to say,

in the past two weeks. First, just how scary these types of emergencies are. I think of myself as a

courageous person, maybe not brave. But when you see fire on the

ridge line, even if it's miles from your house, for me, it is panic-inducing. And just to be present

with myself and that was really interesting. I had an immediate need to flee. I just completely panic. Again, I think this is a

reasonable response, but it's interesting because I'm theoretically not in any immediate risk. This

started on Tuesday, obviously. And so that Tuesday night, I had shared in my newsletter images from the top

of our driveway of just Sullivan Canyon, which is two valleys to the west, just lit up with what were

probably 50 foot high flames. There's just so much fuel after a very, very wet year last year, followed by this year,

which has been a drought. And this particular fuel, it's full of creosode. These hills haven't

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