Insights – Melannie Thomas

Archive for September, 2015

So many ways to be moving; change a position, take an action; be emotionally/spiritually moved; leaving one place for another, literally or metaphorically.

I am excited to announce that ‘Insights’ is moving!  Beginning October 1, 2015 my office will located in a small professional complex at 2841 Cleveland Ave. #11, Santa Rosa CA, 95403.  My phone number will remain unchanged, 707-887-8485.

My current office is being converted to residential housing; a far more compatible use in this W. Steele Lane neighborhood.

The new ‘digs’ have an excellent security system, are energetically peaceful, quiet, and aesthetically pleasing.

Looking forward to working with you in this lovely space.

This Wednesday marks the coming of fall.  Sunday there will be a total Lunar Eclipse.  A time to finish the harvest and begin preparation for winter.  If predictions are realized, this will be a powerful El Nino winter.

For many of us in Lake, Napa, and Sonoma Counties, it will also mark a time of profound loss.  There will be much to do in the coming months and years.  The people of Lake County are a rugged, independent bunch.  They will rise like the Phoenix from the ashes.

There are many ways to help with the recovery effort.  Redwood Credit Union has a donation fund with a 100% going to benefit Lake County residents.  The Red Cross, on the front line everywhere, is always in need of our support.  And there are several sites accepting help for the many animals that need vet care, food (as many fields were lost) and homes.  As well as efforts to connect missing pets with owners.

Firefighters, several of whom lost their homes to the conflagration, deserve our support and immense gratitude.  Especially those on the front line at the beginning, who were faced with really difficult decisions.

Thank you all for your prayers, concerns, sympathies and support during this difficult time.

The last 24 hours have been difficult.  Prayer and concern, constant companions throughout Sunday.  By evening family and friends were reported safe.  Many are now homeless; fleeing the ravenous flames with just the clothes on their backs.  The losses are dumb-founding and mind-numbing.

Land so near and dear to my heart and memory, has been devastated by the ‘worst tragedy Lake County has ever seen’.  It is not over.  The threat is on-going as this fire remains wholly uncontained, wholly unpredictable, and wholly dangerous.

An immense debt of gratitude to the firefighters; emergency personnel; people of Calistoga; the Red Cross; Ranchers who opened their barns and pastures to the many displaced horses; and those who rescued wandering, disoriented pets, and now begin the search to re-unite them with their families.

In crisis is opportunity.  The opportunity to practice altruism; the opportunity to discover the depths of one’s  faith; the opportunity for deeper bonding and understanding between family, friends and strangers alike.   The crisis will pass, but the challenge of recovery remains a formidable task.

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.  We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly.  We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

~Aristotle