A Light in the Darkness
By Juliet Marillier | January 8, 2020 |
At the time I write this, Australia is burning. I’d planned to post on a different topic, but I can’t get my mind off the fires that are eating up our forests, killing wildlife, domestic animals and humans, destroying farms and small towns and livelihoods, and filling the air with choking smoke, even in cities like Sydney and Canberra. This cataclysmic event dominates our media. There are the dramatic stories – evacuations in small boats through a thick smoke haze under a dark red sky; heroic deeds by our firefighters, many of them volunteers; the woman who carried a burning koala to safety, wrapped in the blouse she had stripped off. (The koala was transported to a wildlife rehabilitation centre but later died of its injuries, one of many thousands of innocent lives lost.) There are the tragic stories – a woman dying of a heart attack after being evacuated from the smoke zone; a father and son, both pillars of the community, perishing in their car on a lonely road; a farmer weeping as he shot his burned cattle one by one.
I live on Australia’s west coast. There are fires here too, but (so far) not on the same scale as those in the east. I won’t launch into a political rant about our current federal leadership – this is not the place for that. But people are angry. They’re furious. And people are hurting. Not only those who have suffered personal or business losses, but also those of us struggling to accept the destruction of habitat that will take many, many years to regenerate, if indeed it can, and the mass deaths of our native animals and birds, with some species likely to become extinct. This could have been ameliorated, if not prevented, had our leadership heeded wise advice on climate change years ago. They also might have agreed to a meeting requested by concerned fire experts after last year’s unusually hot summer. That they did neither is hard to accept. I’ll allow a more informed and more fluent voice to speak for me about this.
On the heels of this disaster comes rage, and with it despair, anxiety, and often a feeling of helplessness. The scale of the destruction is so vast, and without insightful leaders I doubt our capacity to prevent a recurrence next summer, and the next, until there’s nothing left to burn. It’s all too easy to lose hope, and with it the will to act. So what can we as writers do to address such a situation?
The strongest tool we have is our writer’s voice. It allows us to speak up about what matters to us. We can do that in all sorts of ways – just as well, because writers are by nature a mixed bunch. Here in Australia we’ve seen many people who work in the creative and performing arts leap into fund-raising action, with some stellar results. Comedian Celeste Barber raised a phenomenal $40 million within just a few days. We’ve heard passionate voices, not all of them Australian, using the forum of the Golden Globes award ceremony to spread the message. Every donation counts, whether it’s five dollars of saved-up pocket money or the million or more from an international celebrity.
This morning I saw a sad and beautiful art work posted on Facebook, of a weeping figure representing Nature cradling a koala to keep it safe, while she herself was on fire. The artist, Melina Mitchell, posted fund-raising links and generously agreed to let people share the piece. This struck me as a wonderful way for a creative artist to help, using her talent and her social media network. This image has now been shared quite widely. You can find it on her artist page.
Other writers I know have written and shared poetry, opinion pieces or accounts of their personal experiences during the fire. It’s not always for fund-raising, though I’ve been impressed by writers here in Australia who are auctioning everything from signed books to critiques to mentoring sessions. We need people’s wise thoughts and observations and their balanced appraisals to help us get through any time of great crisis. We need stories to keep us strong and balanced, and to give us heart. That includes stories that on the surface may seem purely for entertainment. A group of romance writers is working on an anthology of stories about firefighters, with all profits to go to an appropriate charity, and they’ve received a wonderful response. I salute their creativity!
Use your voices, writers. Don’t fall into despair and inaction. Rise above tragedy, rise above difficult times, stay strong and wise. Perhaps you cannot change the world right now. But you can spread a message of truth, and you can help others hold on to hope. You can console and cheer and warm, you can stimulate creative thinking, you can awaken people’s curiosity and lead them down new pathways. You can be a light in the darkness.
If you’d like to make a donation to bushfire relief for people or animals, I recommend doing so via a registered charity such as the Red Cross, the World Wildlife Fund, or WIRES.
How will you use your writer’s voice in 2020?
Image credit: ID 32804711 © Rozenn Leard | Dreamstime.com
Juliet Marillier has written twenty-four novels for adults and young adults and two collections of short fiction. Her works of historical fantasy have been published around the world and have won numerous awards. Juliet’s most recent series was Warrior Bards, of which the third and final book, A Song of Flight, was published in 2021. Her collection of reimagined fairy tales, Mother Thorn and Other Tales of Courage and Kindness, had its trade release in 2022. Mother Thorn is illustrated by Kathleen Jennings and published by Serenity Press.
Juliet is currently working on a two-book fantasy series. The first book in this duology, The Amber Owl, will be published by New Dawn in February 2025.
When not writing, Juliet looks after a small crew of rescue dogs.
Juliet, your eloquence touches me so deeply. As you remind us with your powerful essay, this is what words are for: to stir our feelings, minds, and actions. We write to communicate with others, not only with ourselves. . Thank you, and prayers for relief—from nature, aided by the active response of humanity— for your country.
Thank you so much, Barbara. It was quite hard to write. And thank you for your prayers and good wishes, we need them!
I have been in love with Australia since I was a small child, so much so that I have scrolled past the articles people have been sharing on social media without opening them. The headlines and pictures are hard enough to see and think about. The heart breaks, the spirit sinks.
I have looked longer at the posts and articles about how people are helping, especially Australia Zoo and the Irwin kids’ Instagram posts. We can only take so much terrible, hopeless news that shows how not in control we are before we need just a morsel of something telling us that there are some things that can be done to help. Some things that must be done now to prevent tragedy in the future.
Fiction is a powerful tool for long-term change because it helps change people’s minds about what our priorities and actions should be. This puts me in mind of Julie Dalton’s post about CliFi. As more writers expose more readers to stories in which climate change is directly affecting people and the things they cherish, I do believe people will take it more seriously and work smart to come up with solutions.
My personal opinion is that it must end with hope. Because if people feel the situation is hopeless and the earth is doomed and the world will end anyway, the response is not action but depression leading to inaction. You only take action if you think you can make a difference. So I think writers who add a little inspiration to their dire warnings can make a greater positive impact.
Visions of the apocalypse have their place, of course, but I think we need more than that. If apocalypse begins to feel inevitable and we each see ourselves as a single, feeble life up against the history and trajectory of the last two centuries of human idiocy…well, I’m not sure that’s productive. Yet if I am given even a sliver of hope that concerned people coming together can make a real difference, then I might turn that feeling into action.
Well said, Erin! Holding on to hope is vital, and we can play a part in maintaining that hope through our storytelling (or other creative work.) I see that hope in the work of people like the staff at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, with their painstaking care for burned animals and their dogged persistence in the face of a heartbreaking task. I see it in the way so many people are helping one another and celebrating every small triumph.
Deep down I believe in the essential goodness of the human spirit, though in some folks it’s buried pretty deep. I hope there’s a tide of change coming soon enough to mend the world.
Speaking the truth is essential. It is also discouraging that some not only refuse to listen, but delight in their ignorance.
However, you cannot deny fire. Or mass graves. Or the wrecks of airliners. Or lying by leaders. Or wealth reaped by no effort, but by rules rigged for the rich.
I am sorry you must suffer the fires, Juliet, but the world can see and few are fooled. My Red Cross donation is on the way, and here are my thanks to you, storyteller who sees the truth and writes it.
Thank you for your wise words, Benjamin. We have to believe that truth will win out in the end, despite the rise of ‘fake news’ – even the bushfire emergency was not immune to false or misleading coverage, often geared to minimise or dismiss the underlying issue of climate change.
So sad and heartbreaking, Juliet. I can hardly bear to look at the photographs. I’ve read Sarah Wilson’s impassioned post about Prime Minister ScoMo’s inaction and ruthless behavior. I’m glad Australians are refusing to shake his hand. Thanks for writing and for sharing the link to Sarah’s piece. I’ve shared it to Facebook and Twitter.
Thank you, Lorraine. I’ve had to stop looking at images of dead and seriously hurt animals. ScoMo’s ill-considered speeches and actions enrage me. Sarah’s post spoke volumes – thank you for sharing it.
Juliet, the loss of life, of land, the terror of it. And the frustration. The thought that a billion (a billion!) animals might have died. It is crushingly sad. I’ll make a Red Cross donation too, small it has to be. Perhaps some heads of state will begin to see there’s a pattern here, but ignorance (or deliberate ignorance) is vast. My best to you.
Thank you, Tom. Some of our state leaders are pretty good, but the current federal government is in the pocket of the coal industry and will always put big business first. Sadly it’s a whole three years until our next federal election and even then there’s no guarantee of a change – most of our media organisations are controlled by right wing power-brokers, and they play a major role in influencing voters.
Juliet, thank you for posting about this today. Sean and I have had much anxiety about all of our friends from down under, and felt profound hopelessness. Thank you for reminding us that there are still things to do, and that hope in and of itself is worth the fight. We’ve made a donation to WWF/Australia, and send all of our best wishes–and much hope–to you and your country.
Thank you, Therese – that is very much appreciated.
Juliet, I am late to reading this, but it touches me deeply. And I will click on your links and post what you have sent to us. As a writer for life, who longs to be published, this New Year has made me realize that much of my creative effort has gone into the politics we currently experience, that too often, I have torn myself away from my creative work. I’m sad about this, but feel the need to use my voice, though often I feel it has little power. BUT I MUST USE IT. Thanks for this post.
Yes – every voice counts! We may feel powerless but if enough of us speak up, and do so eloquently, surely we can make change.
Use you voices, writers. I just copied your words and put them above my desk. Hope you don’t mind. Writing is sometimes solitary, our voices seem small, we wonder if anyone is listening and if they are, can they hear us above all the noise. Can we change minds, make a difference. I guess the answer is, we have to.
And we can also act, and hope that we can break through the arrogance against nature that really feels overwhelming. I needed to remember that today, so thanks, May we all hold strong against these horrifying odds.
Very well said, Shelley! Your words are inspirational.
Thank you for the post. It needed to be said. Surely you know that the same kind of hiding your head in the sand is going on here in the US. Let’s hope that sooner rather than later the fires allows new and even different growth. It took scientists here a while to figure out that the giant sequoias needed fire in order to re-generate. Perhaps there will yet be something good that begins to make up for so much that has been lost, especially the vulnerable wild ones. We have to grieve and we have to speak out.
Yes, that ”head in the sand” attitude is everywhere, sadly. I hope thinking people will continue to speak out until we do effect change, and that it happens before it’s too late.
Thank you for your words of wisdom and your thoughts during this trial Australia is facing. My only concern that I might have is your recommendation to donate to Red Cross. I would suggest trying to find another organization that uses the donated money more wisely than the Red Cross. Only about 12 cents on the dollar (approximately) actually go to the purpose of helping others. The rest goes to pay salaries and advertisements.
Thanks for your support, Lisa. I take the point about admin costs and advertising. I recommended those particular charities because I know they are doing good and useful work in relation to the fires, and because they are established and reliable. There have been some scammers seeking to make money out of the crisis – that was why I pointed to particular charities. But there are many other groups doing great work, such as the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, Australia Zoo, and the Salvation Army. People should feel free to donate wherever they wish.
Thanks Juliet! I’m from Queensland. The fires started here in September and my village was evacuated once! Horrifying altogether. And the animals…flora and fauna. Heartbreaking. But we shall rise and hopefully our politicians will have learned a lesson on fuel reduction. Faint hope?
Hi Denise! Sorry you had to be evacuated, that happened to my daughter too (she is in NSW.) The loss of animals and habitat is terrible. Let’s hope our voices will make change and that our politicians have indeed learned something useful – it’s tragic that big business interests hold such sway over what those politicians do.
I hear the tears in your words
I feel the sorrow in your souls
And even on the other side
of planet earth
we can smell the fog
and hate the truth
How can human kind
handle the naivety
of driving it so far….
Juliet, thank you for this difficult and eloquent post. I’m glad you’re safe (for now), but in truth, none of us is safe from the avarice and stupidity of our so-called leaders. The sad thing is that politicians have always been a self-serving lot. But now the stakes are so much higher. Whether we write op-ed pieces, Women’s Fiction, or Middle Grade Fantasy, every writer has the ability to cut through the miasma of fake news and false narratives by presenting the world with emotional truths. And although I know things are going to get worse before they get better, I truly believe that the era of the ignorant greedy strong-man is over. These men just don’t know it yet. But they sense it because they are upping their game of rape and pillage. It’s our job to tell them that the jig is up and that we’re taking the world back from their bloody hands, story by story and piece by truth-telling piece, until they crawl back under the rocks from which they’ve come.
Susan, I hope very much that you are right, and thank you for your powerful words. I love this:
“every writer has the ability to cut through the miasma of fake news and false narratives by presenting the world with emotional truths. ”
Definitely words for us to live by.
I’m glad you and yours are safe thus far, Juliet. You and Sophie are never far from my thoughts.
It’s tragic that it has to come to this to wake up some people but I hope some good can be derived.
My husband and I have made a donation to the Red Cross. May it help a wee bit.
Thank you, Jan. I wish it would wake up more people – Australia is being pilloried in the international media for its woeful inaction on climate change. We’ll keep trying to change things. Thank you for the donation, every bit helps.
I’m not throwing stones. I live in Alberta, where the recently elected government has funded a $30 million “war room” to counter negative press over our oil while defunding healthcare, education, environmental initiatives, and *firefighting*. A few years back, it was our city of Fort McMurry that made international headlines as it burned to the ground. I expect we’ll be pilloried, for good reason, this coming summer. I wish harsh words were all we deserved.
Anyway, onward to what we *can* do.