Greetings from California and the West Coast of the United States, land of fire and smoke. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, those of us living in this part of the world have been visited by, first, unbelievable hot spells, then extremely rare lightning storms, and then rampant and huge fires accompanied by a blanket of smoky air. I myself was almost evacuated at one point due to the fire that raged on the San Francisco peninsula. Although it wasn’t the biggest fire in the state, it did cause some of the most damage to human life because it was in the most populated area, with about 1000 homes destroyed.
Thankfully, my husband and I were never evacuated, though we did have one set of friends who were evacuated for the same fire staying with us for a week. Now, just this past week, the Santa Rosa/Napa Glass Fire unfortunately claimed the home of another set of friends who are living with us while they get their bearings. One thing I can tell you — COVID recedes way into the back of ones consciousness during these experiences. They also put life and “possessions” in perspective.
We’ve lived in our home for nearly 40 years, so you can imagine — it’s chock full of possessions. During our own evacuation scare, we were all packed up and ready to flee, just in case. We also spent a day walking through our home thinking about the meaning or lack of meaning of all our “things” and what we’d do if we lost it all. At first we thought we might go northward to Oregon if we lost our home. That would have been a bad choice! Now the whole West Coast looks like burnt toast. Although our nearby fires are under control, we’ve had to stay inside because of the bad air and smoke. We even had one day that was so dark with smoke that it looked like it was night at 11am! Unfortunately, with climate disaster under way, the yearly fires, which have been growing steadily worse each year, are likely to continue and expand. We’re seriously contemplating relocating or at least buying some sort of “escape hatch” elsewhere. The recent loss of our friends’ home has only made that more clear.
I know this doesn’t have much to do with homeopathy, but while I have you here, I looked up the remedies recommended for smoke inhalation. In Murphy’s Repertory, the appropriate rubric is listed under: Toxicity, Vapors, Smoke inhalation. One of the number one remedies is Carbo Vegetabilis — not surprising! It’s made from burnt plants — vegetable charcoal. The full listing is as follows (note: italics, boldface, and capitalization all indicate various levels of importance or common use of the remedy for this symptom):
Bryonia, Calcarea Carbonica, Causticum, CARBO VEGETABILIS, Euphrasia, Natrum Muriaticum, Nux Vomica, Oleander, Sepia, SPIGELIA, Sulphur.
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