Rebecca Solnit on How Disasters Can Move Us From a Sense of Self-Interest to a Sense of Community

Have long enjoyed Solnit. Thank you Mark Karlin for this sensitive interview.

I am pretty familiar with various forms of disasters and how our communities responded: like fires and floods in CA, (I missed Loma Prieta earthquake), trying to help a few homeless women, and holding a dying step mom, who been abused, as she was dying. When I got in bed at hospice with her, with her abuser pacing impatiently, and whispered in her ear, I am here, you are safe, her whole body relaxed and she died that night. Don't ask me what told me to get in bed with her.

And I have long believed that when we get to this pure being to being existence we experience recognition and Oneness beyond words. I also came to believe, ever since I studied deep ecology with Joanna Macy in the mid '90s, that we would all be hospice workers to each other. When we are all stripped this naked, beyond all "titles", we recognize again, we are One.

Thank you Mark and Rebecca. A deep bow to getting to this depth.