Appalachian Spirit in Action: Overcoming Adversity Together

https://mothergrove.org/hurricane-helene-recovery-how-you-can-help/

Byron Ballard, the Senior High Priestess at Mother Grove Goddess Temple, joins us to share the incredible transformation of her spiritual community into a hub of hurricane relief. Following the devastation of Hurricane Helene, Byron provides an intimate look into the challenges faced by her community, turning a place of worship into a lifeline for those in need.

The spirit of unity across North Carolina is nothing short of inspiring. We uncover heartwarming stories of small churches and organizations like Samaritan's Purse, rallying together to offer aid and support. Monetary donations emerge as crucial in overcoming logistical hurdles, and we stress the importance of ongoing commitment to recovery efforts, urging our listeners to keep the momentum alive in any way they can.

We reflect on the resourcefulness of rural Appalachian communities, reminding us the enduring spirit of kindness and cooperation prevails. Join us in celebrating these stories of resilience and the unyielding human spirit.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:17

Welcome to Pagan Coffee Talk. If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials. Here are your hosts Lord Knight and Oswin. In this episode we are talking to Byron Ballard, who is the Senior High Priestess at Mother Grove Goddess Temple in Asheville, north Carolina. As soon as I found out you had internet or, you know, had access to something, I was like, oh, we got to get them but, really appreciative of you all focusing some attention here.

Speaker 2 0:54

Um, as with any disaster, once the initial shock has worn off, then people are like, oh so everything cool up there now. It's like no, things are not gonna be cool up here, no things are not going to be cool up here for a generation.

Speaker 1 1:06

Yeah, not going to be cool for a long while.

Speaker 2 1:09

Yeah, absolutely hey, y'all. I am Byron Ballard. I serve as senior priestess at Mother Grove Goddess Temple, which is not a coven at all, it's a church. It's organized as a church and where we celebrate the divine feminine, the goddess, the goddesses. However you touch, that regardless. I mean, we're non-denominational like all those little churches that pop up everywhere who say yeah, we're non-denominational Christian.

Speaker 2 1:45

Well, we are non-denominational goddess. So if you love, as many of us do, the Blessed Virgin Mary the BVM as we call her, because you know she's our buddy, so we got a code name for her, but you were not blessed with a happy childhood in the Catholic church, come on over. Come on over, she's here. If you love the idea of Sophia, if you're like a Christian mystic but you can't do with Christianity as part of empire, come on over, come on down. So that's what we do. And until three weeks ago we had been doing. Well, I mean, we have just come out of COVID, really for us, we've been doing public rituals for all of the Holy Days plus Earth Day. We do classes, we do. We did a thing for children called the Blessed Bees which was like spiritual education for the littles. We participate in interfaith. I mean we do all that stuff, all that regular stuff.

Speaker 2 2:52

Now we are a relief agency, albeit a really small one. We are a relief agency for the people in our region who who have needs related to Hurricane Helene and that has absorbed us. The building that we're in is an old hospital building and we're down on the basement floor and the woman who is like the building super. She keeps everything clean, but she also fixes things. She's an amazing woman. She was used to seeing us just on the weekends. We would show up on the weekends to tidy up the altars, to have a little Facebook Live stuff like that, and she just said it's kind of nice having you all here all the time.

Speaker 1 3:41

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 3:42

So we've been there all the time. We are pretty regularly there from 11 to four. Often that is 10 to six, but our, our office hours are 11 to four and we we love it when people drop in and go. Can I have one of these cases of water in the hallway and we will haul it out to the car for them, or they come in and go.

Speaker 2 4:07

My community is here and, for whatever reason, we're not getting the kind of attention we need to get and we will ask them. I mean that right now we need specifics about what people need. Early on it was triage, so everybody needed everything. They needed food, they needed water, they needed paper products, they needed over-the-counter medicines, they needed everything. But now we have been blessed with the attention that has come into specifically Asheville, so Asheville is pretty good right now.

Speaker 2 4:43

I mean, we don't have potable water that comes out of the faucet, but we have water because they're flushing out the systems, so the carrying rain water in the house in a bucket so you can flush the toilet. Those days are now in my past I hope forever. But that convenience you know, guys, the things that we always took for granted that we could turn on a tap and there would be drinkable water. It might smell a little chlorinated, but it would be drinkable. That we could have water to flush our toilets, that we could have electricity, that we could have internet, all those things that. I mean. We're a town but we're fairly sophisticated town. We all just assumed, yeah well, we got that. And then we would complain about our local Internet provider, which sucks, by the way, and I'm not going to say its name, but it sucks and it's all over the place.

Speaker 1 5:37

Right.

Speaker 2 5:37

We would complain about that and complain about tourists on the roads and all that, and I think we're not going to hear that for a while, because there are places where they're just not roads anymore. The Blue Ridge Parkway, a big chunk of that, is not navigable because the roadbed itself washed away and sometimes there'll just be this eerie layer of macadam that stretches out over a gulf because there's no soil underneath. So what we're doing is we're in. We call it triage 2.0, because now it's not a matter of the hierarchy of needs, certainly not in Asheville. In Asheville, everybody is here, feeding everybody, making sure we got potable water. All of that.

Speaker 2 6:27

The need still remains in the far western counties around us, which have not served as a hub the way Asheville has. So those people still need real basics, and not all of them, but just some of them, because the terrain is so hard. Basics, and not all of them, but just some of them, because the terrain is so hard and people have chosen. Either they chose or their ancestors chose to live way up in the head of a holler, somewhere that is only accessible by a gravel road that gets graded two or three times a year, and those are the people that it's hard to get to because the roads are gone. I mean, this is what I've heard and you'll have to fact check me on it, but I hear, I understand, that in some places they got 22 inches of water in two hours, and that was on the back of a storm that I personally know dumped seven inches of rain in my backyard because I've got a rain gauge.

Speaker 2 7:26

So the ground was completely saturated here and then along came this enormous thousand-year flood and we talk about mudslides, and I was listening to a geologist who said you know, if it was just mud that might not be a problem, but they are.

Speaker 1 7:47

They're debris flows, Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 7:48

It's trees and houses, and cars and cows and people and they just it is unstoppable. It hits the arable ground at the bottom of the mountain and that's where people live. Right, and that's where people live, so they choose to be there where they can grow crops and they can get in and out and all of that. So we're looking at and catastrophic is really, frankly, at this point, all night because I can't sleep and I read statistics Somebody did, in fact, fact, check this and I read yesterday that it's an area the size of Belgium that is affected.

Speaker 1 8:34

Wow.

Speaker 4 8:34

But I do have to ask. Let me ask a question because it's on my mind you happen to mention it, we live in the same roughly the same area, so I know there's a lot of livestock and wildlife up there. Do we have any idea how much survived and how much didn't?

Speaker 2 8:49

Not that I've heard. I think right now the focus has been on the people and their animals. So a lot of feed for livestock and for, you know, companion animals for pets, but I haven't heard specifics about that. But I'm going to tell you this. On the Wednesday before this storm hit, we noticed that the birds were gone. Birds were gone and we also noticed things like like we have bears in our neighborhood. It's no surprise Asheville is full of bears that our neighborhood, it's no surprise Astro is full of bears that just wander urban bears.

Speaker 2 9:29

And we've got neighbors in the back who have a really pretty water feature that the bears love to come drink out of and bathe in, so we see bears all the time. The bears disappeared. So I think, I just think animals are smarter than we are and oh yeah and they knew something was up and they went. You know what? We're gonna go to higher ground and we're just gonna hang out there yeah, just for a little while.

Speaker 2 9:54

So we saw a bear again. Uh, like the tuesday after the storm hit, we started seeing bears and before that we got the occasional birds, crows, buzzards. The big ones came in first and then the songbirds came back. So I suspect and I've heard about the big elk herds over in Cherokee, but I suspect the animals went well. I got a funny feeling about this.

Speaker 1 10:26

We'll see y'all later. Bye y'all.

Speaker 4 10:32

Thanks for all the fish.

Community Support in North Carolina

Speaker 2 10:34

Exactly With the bears, that's true. Don't be having no beautiful koi pond in Asheville.

Speaker 4 10:40

North Carolina, Well, I mean. So how much help are y'all seeing and relief and support?

Speaker 2 10:49

are y'all getting from the community at large. I want to say like a couple of things about that One. This morning I went from doing the speech of St Crispin's Day from Henry V, of St Crispin's Day from Henry V, and this morning it became I don't know how familiar y'all are with that play or movie it became the battle of, it became Harfleur, where everybody's tired and you're saying once more into the breach, dear friends, once more, once more.

Speaker 2 11:24

And I think it's going to be that for many, many months to come, where it's like, yes, send us everything. We love you, we're powerful. Yay, yeah, I know God, I know y'all are tired. I'm going to go buy the Krispy Kreme and bring in some donuts, if somebody will bring a box of coffee from Dunkin' I think we'll be, okay, I have heard some wonderful stories about just everybody literally working together, putting off differences and stuff like that, beliefs and going.

Speaker 4 11:57

we got to help each other.

Speaker 2 11:59

Oh yeah, we had a load of heaters we're in love. Now I'm going to do some product placement here. We are in love with Mr Heat. It's a buddy heater that you get at Lowe's, so we're in love with that. And yesterday four people who are Lowe's employees had come up here to work with Samaritan's Purse in Swannanoa, which is a big Christian relief organization.

Speaker 1 12:27

Right.

Speaker 2 12:28

But all the heaters that they brought with them came to Mother Grove Goddess Temple.

Speaker 1 12:32

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 12:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:34

Nice.

Speaker 2 12:35

And we're seeing a lot of that. And there are little, tiny churches, like ours, that are stepping up and doing all that they reasonably can do churches like ours that are stepping up and doing all that they reasonably can do. And there are big churches that are offering their parking lots for distribution and they're offering their bathrooms and they're bringing in shower trucks and all that. And there are people who have really stepped into the work that we have to do right now. And then there are others that are just like well, I got my water back on, so everything's fine, and everybody. We bat the word around all the time about trauma brain. We all have trauma brain up here. So if the only way you can deal with that is today is Saturday and I've got a bottle of tequila, I'm going to go find a lime somewhere and I'm going to drink tequila all day and sleep Right, then that's what you have to do.

Speaker 2 13:29

I don't recommend that, frankly. But I mean, now that I've said it, it does sound kind of good and some people just have to work and work and work and work to exhaustion. I don't recommend that either, and some people have to go do something that brightens them. So there's a big fundraiser, I think, tomorrow night. That is all about raising money for the artists who lost their art and their material and their space, and there's going to be bands and there's going to be cabaret, and it's going to be this big splashy thing that a lot of people will feel the need to go to to just escape for three hours before they go back to doing it again.

Speaker 2 14:20

And there are people who once their place of business opened up again, now they're at work so they can't volunteer. But those people, a lot of them, I'm finding they're on the Internet at night and they're saying OK, so I'm connected to this organization, this is what they need, and I'm connected to this organization, this is what they need. So we are all in it 24, seven, three, 65, though, um, you know we can't, we can't go on three, 65,. Not even Henry the fifth can help us with that.

Speaker 1 14:55

Right, Well, I know, um. I pulled the information from your website and I will be putting that information in the show notes about where people can donate and how they can donate to you.

Speaker 4 15:11

But it would be nice if you took a moment and repeated that for our listening audience to be on the safe side. So we know they got it so they can read it and they hear it from you.

Speaker 2 15:24

I wish I could tell you what that is. You can go to our website, which is mothergroveorg I think you actually probably can see my website and I can't and there's a place there to donate, and all the donations that are coming in now are going directly to flood relief.

Speaker 4 15:46

Now if people wanted to send supplies instead of money. Are there any specific supplies water heaters, blankets.

Speaker 2 15:54

Nope, Nope, Because because, because we have supplies here now. So rather than and here's something that happened with a large distributor whose name I will not mention, but is also the name of a river in South America that people it's easy for a lot of people to order from them, but they would order nonsensical things, like they'd order a case of water to be shipped here ordered a case of water to be shipped here instead of just going oh, a case of water costs $9.99. I'm going to send them $10 to go buy some damn water, Right? So we were shipped a gallon in quart bottles of bleach that was so poorly packed it leaked all over everything.

Speaker 1 16:41

Oh no.

Speaker 2 16:42

Yeah, oh no, it's bad. That stuff is bad. So I know people are good hearted and they desperately want to do something. I get that. I get that. And writing a check or clicking their Venmo, that doesn't feel the same as actually doing something. I totally get that. But right now, what we need, we need people on the ground who are willing to work hard. I mean work hard. I somebody is on their phone and they go oh, the so-and-so center needs water. I write it down and then I click till I find somebody who can deliver water. That's not working hard.

Speaker 2 17:33

That means my poor brain, but it ain't working hard. We need people who are able, who can dig fence posts, who can put up fencing. Who can, who can dig fence posts? Who can put up fencing, who can? If they can't cut up firewood, they can stack firewood, and I'm not seeing a lot of that. But, those people need to come out of the area because, frankly, if people come here, it's hard to find a place for them to stay.

Speaker 2 18:00

And the hardest thing, and the thing I want to say I'll be really clear about, is it's hard when somebody contacts us and they say well, I'm coming from Raleigh with a tractor and trailer full of and it's a full of a whole bunch of stuff that might be might have been helpful two weeks ago and it's no longer helpful. So what we need people to do is what you just did. We need people to contact the agency they want to work with right now and say what do you need right now, and not just assume oh well, here, I'm just going to send them a bunch of clothes. Well, we are covered up with summer clothes.

Speaker 2 18:41

A friend who had gotten a little short-tempered, as we all have in different times, she said you know what your collection of Hawaiian shirts does not help us when the temperature is 28 degrees, so don't be sending us your old rags. Don't take that bag you were going to take to Goodwill of just crap you've outgrown. Don't send us that. We specifically can use new winter jackets and coats, especially for children. We can use that. If people want to bring that in, that's great, but we do not need you to bring us, oh God, more stuff that we can't use there. I said it without saying any bad words at all use there I said it without saying any bad words at all.

Speaker 2 19:33

Well, you can only use so much toilet paper so fast before you're kind of like okay, y'all, we have got in the office at our chapel we've got what we call the wall of paper towels and I bet you there's 500 rolls of paper towels.

Speaker 4 19:47

Wow, I'm more scared that people in the community are going to forget what in the world happened up there, since this is starting to get out of the mainstream media.

Speaker 2 20:03

Yes, I am too pissed off about to want is that the people who are helping us, mother Grove Goddess Temple, are people who are Facebook friends of mine and friends of their friends. They are not the BNPs, they're not the big name parents. They are people on the ground who are organized in their own communities and they see what we're doing and they contact us and go what do you need? What do you need? I have been until about a week ago.

Speaker 2 20:34

I've been so disappointed, with the exception of Christopher Penzac, who is a personal friend, who early on, like day four, he said I'm sending money here and I encourage all of you to send money here and it doesn't have to come to Mother Grove Goddess Temple. If you got something against me or the goddess or whatever, it doesn't have to come to us. But to see one of the influencers in the pagan community stand up and say, as Christopher Penzac did, there is need here and, whether you can personally donate or not, if you use your name and platform to draw attention there, that would be great. But at this point it's too fucking late, because now they're just jumping on a bandwagon. Now they've been guilted because I don't know how many days, like a few days ago I was thanking all the people who had sent things and I said, and my big disappointment is the so-called, as I call them, the pagan glitterati. I was like where the hell are you?

Speaker 2 21:43

And these are people. These are people that for years I've considered colleagues and some of them even friends, and they are just, they're silent. They're silent and some of them will go. Well, I sent something privately. I sent a little private donation. Well, you know what I've got in this book, right here, I've got the printouts for PayPal and Venmo, and I know how much they sent. I know how much, and they did not send $1,000. They sent $10. They sent $25. I'm not guilt in them about the amount, because the money at that point was less important than the exposure and the attention, and that's something they did not do. Even those who were raised in this region and have moved away. They're not involving themselves, and that is disappointing. But it's also very illuminating, isn't it? It is, yes, it is.

Speaker 4 22:43

It's very surprising considering how high of a pagan-ish population that lives up in that area with you. It has been quite known for many years around here oh yeah. I just find stunning.

Speaker 2 22:56

Well, and what I find stunning is that I've been on the road for 10 years touring and presenting with these people. So it's not like I'm an unknown commodity, it's not like they don't know and it's not like they don't know where I'm from. But here are things that are happening that are beautiful and I really want to share those. So I am no longer bitter about the BNP because, well, because what it has done, what all of this has done, is give many of us a hard reset. So now I understand that those people who have been pretending to be my friends all these years are not my friends, and that's a good thing for me to know. It's bad for them because I'm a double Scorpio, but it's good for me to know.

Creative Community Support for Hurricane Victims

Speaker 2 23:36

But here's what has happened. That's beautiful. So a friend of mine who is a fiber artist and I know a lot of people who are knitters and crocheters said well, what can we do? And I said well, cold weather is coming and if y'all wanted to knit or crochet us warm, woolly hats, well, oh, my gosh. That handful of people went out into their knitting and crocheting communities and said they need warm hats, and I think I'm going to end up with 10,000 beautiful, warm hats.

Speaker 1 24:09

Lovely.

Speaker 2 24:11

I mean, they're incredible art. We pull them out and we just start weeping because they're so beautiful. And we sent a bunch of the children's things down to our sister agency, which is Beloved Asheville. So that has been wonderfully successful and continues to be. Oh sorry.

Speaker 1 24:36

Cuckoo clock. That's a moment, isn't it?

Speaker 2 24:38

That's been just delightful. My friend, patricia Ballantyne, tonight is doing a magical, working in her favorite coffee shop in Texas in which she is raising money this is to send to us. The Corellian Church is doing this. Just it delights me and tickles me. They're doing a telethon tomorrow. A telethon.

Speaker 1 25:04

Wow.

Speaker 2 25:05

And it's from 11 to 6, I think, Eastern Time. They're in Central Time and they're inviting people on to play music and to talk and to be inspirational and to raise money. And isn't that just the coolest thing?

Speaker 1 25:21

It really is.

Speaker 2 25:21

It's a telethon, an old-fashioned telethon. That's awesome. My sister group in Tennessee one of them makes these beautiful hand-felted dolls and she did an online auction for one of her dolls and made I don't know like $200. And really early on, someone, joe Links and Mary Ann Webster and Amelia Selesky, created an online Facebook Live forum and they raised like $700. So it's the people on the ground, the circles on the ground, that are supporting us completely. And there is no. What do you mean? What the hell? Why would we give that to you? And there is no. What do you mean? What?

Speaker 1 26:08

the hell, why would?

Speaker 2 26:08

we give that to you. There's a lady in our building. I'm going to shout out to her Marva Ann, and if you can hold on to the word Marva Ann and picture who that looks like, that's exactly who she is. She's like a little woman. She's got a nail salon and her daughter and it's a suite in our building. Her daughter, I think, does hair, she does nails, and somebody else does massage shoulder massage and she's delightful and her clients will come in and go oh my gosh, I still don't have water. I don't know what I'm going to do. We don't have any drinking water. And she brings them downstairs to where we are and on the door of the chapel it says Mother Grove. It doesn't say Mother Grove, goddess Temple, just Mother Grove. And she calls us Mother Goose and she says I'm going to bring you down to the Mother Goose store.

Speaker 2 26:57

Because, they've got everything at the Mother Goose store, and so she comes down and we will give her whatever hot lunch came in for us that day and we will fill her clients up with whatever they need. And it's just dear. It's just dear and it gives me hope for humankind. It does.

Speaker 4 27:17

That's awesome.

Speaker 2 27:18

Yeah, so now we're.

Speaker 4 27:21

Mother Goose. I think that is just cute as can be.

Speaker 2 27:26

I know it's just dear, it's just dear, it's just dear. And we, you know we're getting loads of stuff from all sorts of places. We appreciate y'all downstate who are like I love Asheville. What can I do? What can I send? We've really been holding it each other pretty tight, which is good. Every day at our chapel starts with hugs and kind of checking in. So how are you doing? How'd you sleep? And it ends with shots of elderberry tincture because we take that soup.

Speaker 1 27:58

I love it. Yeah, love it.

Speaker 4 28:02

Don't get me wrong. I really hate the tragedy and everything that's happened up there, but it's so heartwarming to hear such wonderful stories about people coming together.

Speaker 2 28:11

It really is and it should be able. I hope that it inspires other communities to get ready, because we up here we've been touted for over a decade as a climate refuge.

Speaker 2 28:25

That climate change is not going to affect us. It's a climate refuge. That climate change is not going to affect us. You know, we may lose some trees and it may get hotter in the summer or whatever, but that's just not true. And if we are not a climate refuge, nothing, nowhere. There's no other, there's nowhere else, because we're all in this and all of our communities can prepare and we are not doing anything any other community couldn't do. We didn't know how to do this. We've been pulling this out of our ass, can prepare and we are not doing anything any other community couldn't do.

Speaker 1 28:53

We didn't know how to do this.

Speaker 2 28:54

We've been pulling this out of our ass for three weeks. Right, people will say, well, what do you need? And we'll ask around and go I don't know what people need. And then we'll say this is what we need. I'm going to give you the example of the microwave. So we thought if we had a microwave at the temple, people wouldn't have to bring us a hot meal. I mean, they do that because they love us, but we can heat things up in the microwave.

Speaker 2 29:12

We were offered six microwaves. We got two of them. Three more are coming, so we kept the one that worked best for us and the rest are just going out to people who have things like Meals on Wheels and they can just reheat their food and I asked for a. We needed a shelf to put all the baby products on. We got two shelves and offers of three or four more.

Speaker 1 29:37

Wow.

Speaker 2 29:38

So people are generous and people want to do things. And the last thing I'll say and I'm sorry I'm taking up so much air- no, you're fine.

Speaker 4 29:51

You're fine, it's nice to be able to talk about it. This is what we have, you own here. We want you to talk the uh.

Speaker 2 29:59

The next thing that I think I'm gonna start asking for is that a one, a friend in Kentucky, called me and she said I I've got friends here. They don't knit, they don't crochet, they ain't got no money, they just want to help. How can they help? Well, I tell them old-fashioned thoughts and prayers, you know, light a candle, send some good energy our way. All of that works. All of that is real stuff. So often we mock the idea of thoughts and prayers, but thoughts and prayers are real things and so your thoughts and prayers help us. They help us. If that's quote, unquote, all you can do, that's good, we take it, we're happy, happy for that.

Speaker 2 30:41

So this woman said so, her friends, they didn't have any money, they couldn't net. What could they do? And I said, well, do they have children? Well, no, I grandchildren. And I said here's what would be helpful if you were, if you will ask your grandchildren to draw pictures of what life is like where they are, so pictures of their dog and their cat and their house and the flowers in the yard and the leaves changing where they, all that stuff and send them here to go to our children. So our children remember oh, this is hard, but it's temporary, so I will. I'll be able to hang out with my dog again, or I'll be able to oh, look, that house doesn't have a tree on it, and and that's something that that children to do Children who like to draw pictures can draw pictures and send them back and we will get them out to the children in our communities.

Speaker 1 31:39

And our communities are very diverse.

Speaker 2 31:42

I mean I talk about because I'm a country person at heart. I grew up in West by God, buncombe County. But the people we tend to think of.

Speaker 2 31:54

Appalachia as this kind of lily white enclave and it's just not. So many of the communities we're doing our best to reach are immigrant communities that don't want any attention. So we have had to navigate how it is we get donations to those places, how we get them to understand that we're not ICE, that we really. If you need masa and you need cooking oil and you need coffee and sugar, we're just going to bring you that and you don't have to talk to us and we don't have to talk to you. We don't have to see you. If you tell us where to leave that at the door, we'll turn around and go away, yeah.

Speaker 4 32:40

Well, let me say this with that Migrants aren't the only people up in that area that I know of that behave that way too.

Speaker 1 32:49

No, they're not.

Speaker 4 32:50

There are some other people up there that like their own privacy and don't go on their property.

Speaker 2 32:57

Yes, and don't draw attention to them.

Speaker 4 33:01

No no.

Speaker 2 33:03

Yeah, and some of that particular community which, as me, yeah, and some of that particular community which, as me, they are coming in with their license tag, not on a vehicle. So, they come in to help, they come in to stack firewood, they come in to dig post holes, and then they just disappear.

Speaker 4 33:23

Yep.

Speaker 2 33:24

Yeah, and they'll take your box of MREs with them because that's fine with them. Yes, Right. Exactly.

Speaker 4 33:33

All right. Again, I don't want to scare people about this area. Majority of these people are very nice and kind people. They just like their privacy.

Speaker 2 33:41

Right, yes, and I'm going to correct you. The majority of the people in Asheville are not necessarily nice and kind. I'm going to correct you. The majority of the people in Asheville are not necessarily nice and kind, because a lot of them have come here to have a second or third or fourth home that they're almost never in except during leaf season, and they're not part of this community, and I'm in love with that big dog behind you, Knight.

Speaker 2 34:10

Yes that's my little pooch, your little baby, your little baby yes so a lot, of, a lot of those people and I'm you know I'm not holding any resentment because, hello, trauma brain they just up and left. They had gotten settled in for leaf season and then they were like whoa, no baby, no baby, I'm going back to Birmingham, I'm going back to wherever the hell they come from. So it's a hard thing in a gentrified community to know that some of the people who have driven up the tax value on your property are not going to be here when you need to borrow flushing water.

Speaker 4 34:50

Right.

Speaker 2 34:51

They're just not going to be here. So so they are. They're part of the community when they choose to be, but they're not really part of the community.

Speaker 1 34:58

Right.

Speaker 2 34:58

They just have a house here, and that's a very different thing and it's something all of us in in every community, everywhere, need to be aware of is that there's going to be a lot of people who just decamp and then they will write from Atlanta oh, my goodness, it's so terrible, I've lost my Vrbo property or my Airbnb. And people are like, yeah, really, have you got? Another. Airbnb, because we've got a whole family over here that's freezing in a tent in 37 degree weather, so maybe you open the damn door.

Speaker 4 35:33

Rule living. I've lived out in the rural areas, yeah. So again, everything you're talking about is everything I'm familiar with. I remember it snowing here and all the kids were out on their dad's tractors clearing the road, with the local cops going by, going now y'all be careful and watch what you're doing. Thank you so much. The neighbors across the road are like hey, you ain't got water. The pool's full of water, we can flush the toilets.

Speaker 2 35:58

Yes, yes, rural people have always done that for each other. Yes, because you have to you have to yeah. No family's an island in a rural setting. Because something goes bad, you can't just call up Hub Grub and have something delivered, not right.

Speaker 2 36:17

The deer, come in and eat your entire corn crop. You don't have anything to feed hogs and cows over the winter. And then people share. They share what they have and a lot of people ain't got much and they still share it. They still share it. So it's the best of times and it's the worst of times, but it'll take us I swear it's going to take us half a generation to understand what has happened here. And I've been saying, like what happened with Katrina in New Orleans, the downtown of Asheville looks untouched because it's up on high ground, it's on a hill and it looks fine. I mean they ain't got potable water yet, but they're working around that a lot of these shops and restaurants.

Speaker 1 37:08

Right.

Speaker 2 37:09

And so the whole area around it devastation. But the city's going to look fine and it's like the French Quarter. You know, within a couple of years after Katrina you could go into the French Quarter. It looked like the French Quarter. You get you a stiff drink and a beignet and some coffee and it was fine.

Speaker 4 37:27

Well, it's just like when we get hit by hurricanes here in the Piedmont area it's easy for us to recover because we're used to it.

Speaker 2 37:35

Right.

Speaker 4 37:36

There's not that many storms that come up there in y'all's area like this. This is.

Speaker 2 37:41

Well, it has happened three times in the past 110 years, I guess. Yeah so in 1916, we had a flood that almost equaled this.

Speaker 1 37:52

Right.

Speaker 2 37:52

But there was a smaller population and there was less infrastructure. And then again, in 1940, there was a big flood on the French Broad. And in 2004, there was a big flood on the French Broad, but this has been the worst. This is they're calling it a thousand year flood, and there was much more to destroy this time.

Speaker 4 38:15

Yes.

Speaker 2 38:17

And the Swannanoa, which is just a little. Y'all have been up here. It's just a little pissant of a river. There ain't nothing to it at all. It floods all the time and it floods Biltmore Village and all of that. But the devastation that that little river wreaked on the Swannanoa Valley is heart-stopping, heart-stopping and for a while nobody could even get in there. That's how bad it was. And we're seeing that in lots of places out in Guerin Creek down in Fairview Horrific damage. Guerin Creek down in Fairview horrific damage.

Speaker 1 39:02

My beloved.

Speaker 2 39:02

Marshall up in Madison County. It looks like something out of a movie it does and there are buildings there that survived the water but it destabilized them. So there are lots of buildings that look fine but they don't have to be knocked down.

Speaker 4 39:15

Now I'm going to wonder how much historical landmarks are we going to lose up there because of this?

Speaker 2 39:23

Well, we're losing old homestead we're losing. There was a guy on TV last night who his family had lived on this piece of property for I don't know five, six, seven generations a long time and he just, I mean he didn't cry, because men up here don't cry Very often he didn't cry, but he was as close to tears as anybody could come.

Speaker 2 39:48

And he said here's what we're going to do. We can't, we can't live here anymore. We just can't. It's too traumatic to listen to that, to listen to more storms come in, to be worried constantly. And he said what we're going to do is we're going to clean up this land, we're going to make it pretty and we'll come up here for the family reunion and for special events and maybe we'll come up here camping and things like that. And he said but we're not going to live here anymore.

Speaker 2 40:16

And of course, on the heels of that, we got all the damn carpetbaggers coming in from all over looking for a fire sale. Oh, I'm so sorry, but we're happy to pay for your ruined land, we're happy to pay. Even if your house is damaged, we're glad to pay for that. We have some of the highest property values in the goddamn country here, and so they're going to be offering not pennies on the dollar but pennies on the hundred dollar. And there are people who are so overwhelmed and so grief stricken that they are going to take whatever they can get and they're going to get the hell out of here and those carpetbaggers, those people who are coming in to make a quick buck on somebody else's misery. There's not a worse person on the planet. They deserve to go to whatever hell they believe in.

Speaker 4 41:04

It's the same thing that happened in Hawaii after the fire. Yeah, in Maui, all them countries went in there.

Speaker 2 41:10

In fact there is a group and if I can find that link I'll send it to you. There's a group that went into Maui afterwards to try to curtail some of that. Right and we are working with them here. We're working with them.

Speaker 4 41:22

Okay. I had heard that they had set up some laws and stuff to kind of prevent that.

Speaker 2 41:30

Wouldn't that be nice. And wouldn't it be nice if you had a law that it was actually, I don't know, enforced?

Speaker 4 41:36

if you had that law, it'd be good, it'd be good, but see here's what kills me is people, especially therapists and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 41:43

I always tell you never make a decision during a crisis no, never make any big life changes no, and but I'm telling you, the people that are making these decisions are people who have never seen a therapist, never will see a therapist.

Speaker 4 41:57

But they're not making informed decisions.

Speaker 2 41:59

No, they are, they are not and they just want to go. I can't tell you how many times I've counseled people who there was, uh, there was medical malfeasance that killed their loved one. There was medical malfeasance that killed their loved one. And all they have to do is talk to a lawyer and then stand back and they won't do it. They go.

Speaker 2 42:20

No, I just need to set it aside, I need to let it go. I just need to let it go, and that's how a lot of people are going to feel here. You know granddad's 50-acre farm. I'm just going to have to let that go so that some son of a bitch and y'all if you need to clean my language up, you do it but some son of a bitch developer from Florida is going to come up here and put you know million-dollar condos on it. Yeah, yeah, and you walked away with your $25,000. Right, I don't believe in sin, as as you might imagine, but if there was a sin, that would be one that would be it, yep yeah I agree oh sure, well, you got the full force of some of my language.

Speaker 4 43:09

well, I do appreciate you being on and and we get to hear about what's going on up there in that area, and I would really love for you to come back on one day so we can have a little bit longer conversation about your actual church and some of the stuff that you do there. I know the main focus was to help get your resources and stuff like this and make awareness better.

Speaker 1 43:31

Yeah, I definitely have some questions about about your church, you know, since you've been around since 2008. So we would love to have you back to talk about some of that sometime. I would love that.

Speaker 2 43:50

I would love that so much. Thank you all. Thank you. My big thing right now is gratitude. Aside from the fact that I hate carpetbaggers, I'm grateful to y'all. I'm grateful to all the people who are donating. I am primarily grateful to my immediate community, who has just stepped up. I mean, this is the Circle of Council, which is our governing body for the temple. They're just. They're just hanging around the temple. They're coming and saying, okay, my car's empty, where can stuff go? And they're just there.

Speaker 2 44:22

They're there, literally boots on the ground. So thank you all so much. I'd love to come back and talk to you and tell you what we're doing.

Speaker 4 44:31

All right, I'd appreciate it, thank you Awesome.

Speaker 1 44:36

Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pagan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetempelseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit.

Speaker 3 44:53

It is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breaks.