A few years ago, we escaped to Dominica, a tiny island in the Caribbean after a traumatic health event left myself and my husband scarred and exhausted. We arrived seeking rest and ocean. And to be far, far away from everything we had come from. We found communities and ocean and forests and mountains. And we found a people, recovering, traumatized, every conversation a memory about Irma, the Hurricane which had devastated the island about a year before our visit.

It did not take long to see the damages that had been inflicted by the hurricane. The scars were real, the waterfront homes still lay damaged, many streets were torn apart. ‘The water rose all the way to my bed!’ recounted a local shopkeeper. Every night the sermons from the local church would echo across the village. They proclaimed, ‘God has sent climate change as test to our collective consciousness.’ The sermon would continue into the hours of the night. One evening, I was exhausted and semi-delirious from trauma and grief. I lay outside in the garden listening to the evils of capitalism and greed from the megaphones outside my AirBnB. They spoke of how God would one day smite the sinners who continue to spew carbon dioxide without any regard to their fellow man. That night, I dreamed of armies of nameless robots coming for our freedoms, taking out my ovaries which were actually tree roots and refusing to give them back.

Every night, people would share their stories of Hurricane Irma, confessing that their dreams were still haunted by the rise of the water. I was really moved by their ability to come together as a community, to process the trauma of what had happened recognizing that healing is a crucial component of action. At that time, I was still enveloped by immense grief. I could scarcely recognize myself. It was an act of compassion to feel others around me giving up their own stories. They did this as a way to liberate our collective traumas.

And still people had to keep going. My privilege allowed me to wallow for a time in the garden, on the beach, refusing to connect with others. It didn’t take long before I noticed trauma and grief in everyone around me. Yet, they still stood up and did what they had to do. Imperfect being is a necessary prequel to release.

Every day, swimming in the ocean, going for short hikes and having conversations with the locals slowly kept me out of my head and into the land and people. Strangers seemed to understand my state of mind somehow. They offered kind smiles and soft touches. People handed me free juices and fruits. They brought me dinner directly to the house. (Just dropping in, sis, thought you might like some chicken tonight.) This reminded me that, in the end, humanity always has a way of being touched despite everything that seeks to divide us. And if I had to stop myself crying in the middle of a conversation, the old ladies would nod in sad and understanding silences, wait while I composed myself. Once, she held me close and said, ‘I have a daughter. Cry it out girl, cry it out.’ As I let myself be held by a total stranger. She even gave me a juice box afterwards. I can’t tell you how good it felt.

There is a type of healing that only happens in communion with others. I look around these days as we break weather records. Rains in Canada and the UK flood communities. There are wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and droughts. I am reminded that there is much more to come in the planetary realities of our times. The personal and the planetary are entangled. As we break weather records, our communities will change, our family dynamics and our health will be affected. Whether you believe what is happening is ‘human induced’, God induced, or part of a natural cycle, we will have to reckon with these changes. We have to face these changes together or alone. The grief will come. Who will you let cry on your shoulder? Who will you allow to share their story, without judgment, in your home or garden?

In her beautiful book, ‘Combining’, Nora Bateson asks, ‘Who can I be when I am with you? Who can you be when you are with me?’ This is the crux of the matter. Hiding our fears from each other do no good to either of us. Learning to hold each other’s stories and realities matter more than anything else at this time.

In every religion or spiritual tradition, there is some story of a beggar stranger looking for your compassion. You have a choice to ignore them or to offer them hospitality. Usually, as the stories go, hospitality will be rewarded. I will forever remember how Dominica’s people, lands, and waters held me in their hard, cold truth of their reality. Hurricane Irma destroyed homes but did not destroy their spirit. they used this experience as a way to seek comfort from each other. They shared their sorrows so generously. And it was this communing with reality that healed me. Not the running away from my everyday life to a paradise island.