John Seed once said, “I am part of the rainforest protecting itself.” He is the father of the Australian Deep Ecology movement and founder of the Rainforest Information Centre. The idea he shares is that we are One with all life and when we are open, we can take action as an extension of the Earth protecting itself. 

I first learned of John Seed when I spent a week with Joanna Macy and thirty other individuals learning about Deep Ecology and healing our disconnect from Earth. This was after I spent a year documenting the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster and was emotionally and spiritually burned out, depressed, exhausted. Joanna helped me heal and open myself again to alignment with beauty.

Twenty-five years after the explosion of Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 workers and creating the largest oil spill in the history of marine oil drilling operations, I was hiking with friends on Alum Cave trail. Three days before Earth Day. We made it to LeConte Lodge and enjoyed lunch, sitting on a grassy area. One friend wanted to stay at the lodge, so the other friend and I decided to hike to Cliff Tops, a short distance from the lodge.

We almost left our packs with Pam, but decided to take them in case she wanted to walk around or visit the store. There are two trails to Cliff Tops and I led us up the longer one. As soon as we turned onto Cliff Tops trail, off of the Boulevard Trail, we smelled smoke and saw a billowing puff coming from a grassy area. Without looking at each other to talk about it or pausing a second, we sprinted through the woods toward the smoke and found an actively burning fire in a very poorly constructed circle of rocks. There was dry grass all around and high winds. Thank goodness we had our packs with our water supply!

Paige is a battalion chief in a fire department in Georgia and immediately took action. We emptied our water containers onto the fire and she instructed me to run back to the lodge and get water and let the lodge staff know what was happening. She continued to work on digging a proper pit around the fire while I ran back with her water bottles and the water bladder from my pack.

Once I arrived at the lodge, I instructed a guy to run tell the staff about the fire, where it was and our efforts to extinguish it. I refilled our containers and ran back up the trail. Paige had made considerable progress in extinguishing the fire, which was smoldering when I returned. She carefully used the 5 liters of water to cool the remaining hot areas. And then two gals from the lodge arrived with a shovel to bury the fire remnants with soil.

Never in my life have I felt like two individuals, one a fire chief, were so in the right place at the right time. The wind was blowing toward the lodge. One spark from that fire onto the dry grass could have created a loss of not only historic structures, but acres and acres of ancient forest, not to mention human lives and wildlife. The experience reminded me of John Seed’s quote….I am part of the rainforest protecting itself.

I met other hikers who ignored my request to bring their water to the fire, so perhaps they didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation or they weren’t consciously open to the call of the forest. I don’t know. But I do know that Paige and I love places like this and have a deep place of connection with them and all life. Perhaps that conscious connection allowed us to respond to the forest, allowed it to rise up through us to protect itself. 

When I reflect back on that moment, at the exact right timing, at Paige being there bringing her expertise to the exact location where it was needed, to my knowing where the closest water hydrant was located…I really do feel that somehow our openness and love of Nature called us to that intersection of need and skill. 

Imagine what can happen in our lives and in this world if many of us are open to using our skills and allow life to call us to that intersection where need and skill meet, not just once, but as a life practice. I believe the world could be transformed.