Chip and I dive into the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, sharing the overwhelming sense of loss and the one word that has kept coming up for both of us—community. In this episode, we reflect on how this tragedy has reshaped our outlook on the bigger picture, what it truly means to come together in times of crisis, and explore ways we can all help rebuild and support those affected. Join us as we unpack the lessons we've learned and the strength that comes from unity.
HOSTS:
Kelly Henderson // @velvetsedge // velvetsedge.com
Chip Dorsch // @chipdorsch
Hey there, Chip, Hi, how you doing this Friday?
All right?
How are you?
It's actually Thursday. We don't actually record these on Friday. That would be very unprofessional of us.
It would be, especially because we often have troubly been getting it done by Thursday to.
Give we all are tips.
I know, I know. So we are here today obviously if you guys don't know, there's been a lot going on from Hurricane Heleen, and you know, it's really interesting though, is the reason I actually wanted to talk about this. It's not like we are able to talk about everything that happens in the world all the time, and then there's sometimes where we feel like we can't talk about anything except the bad things happening in the world because it just feels inappropriate. But this one is interesting because, like, I got a text literally today from a friend of mine who lives in LA and she had just heard about this devastation that happened in North Carolina. And so there is this weird kind of responsibility I feel right now just to spread the news about this in some weird way because we know people who've been personally affected and it's obviously really bad, and I just don't know that the media is doing any service by like talking about it. Maybe they're starting to a little bit more now and that's how people are finding out. But it just doesn't even seem like it was publicized when it first was happening, which was wild to me.
Well, and it's you know, obviously it hit several states, so it's Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia and Tennessee and Florida were the majorly affected ones. And because we live in Tennessee, I think we're we hear about it more like I keep thinking about when we had the tornado here and it's like a blip on the national radar rights and then it kind.
Of goes quiet, and you know, it took years.
I mean there's still buildings in Nashville that have not been replaced or fully torn down or whatever. And looking at the photos of what's happened in Ashville, in particular, because we've got a personal relationship with someone there, I mean it's going to take them decades oh yea yeah, to get it back to any place of that's recognizable. And I've had friends and be like.
Wait, what what happened?
And it baffles me that it is not something that everyone is talking about because there's so many people in pain right now, you.
Know, but this is very common, because you know, I was telling our friend that actually ended up going to Asheville. My grandparents lost their flood in kind of an aftermath of a hurricane in Louisiana, And because I've grown up in Louisiana, I know what that devastation is like. Unfortunately, that is something that's common down there. You see it often. And then whenever that happened, I went down and you know, we helped tear down the house and salvage anything that could be salvageable. But I don't think that people fully understand the trauma, the tragedy, the loss that is that unless you've kind of seen it firsthand, because we see it on the news, and that's like anything. It's like when we're seeing, you know, the wars happening overseas. It's not like it fully registered how bad. Ye, yes, but when you've gone through it, I think it is such a massive loss, Like you don't think about the fact like my grandparents did not have toothbrushes, they didn't have any sort of clothing, like you literally have nothing, and they had lived in that same house for forty something years. So the amount of just memorabilia of life, like pictures, all of those things, they were gone.
They're gone.
Yeah, and we're lucky to have a lot digitally now, but like if you don't, or just you know, things like baby toys and things that you would have kept that reminded you of childhood or things.
Like that, Like, all of that was lost and it's.
Devastating to have to start over like that. And that's what we're seeing in Asheville. Like when you see these houses with water up to the roof, I don't know that it fully registers again, like unless you've gone through it at what that actually looks like for your next couple months years.
Well, not to mention the homes that literally were swept away, Like, right, this was so bad that trees were banging into homes and knocking them off their foundations and just they were being swept away and then crushed by the river. Right, it's hard to imagine what that is really like. I mean, it's one thing like to have your house standing there and it's in ruin and you can sort of sift through things. It's another thing to go up your driveway and nothing be there. The city of Chimney Rock in North Carolina, like it doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist. I know, yeah, just grasp that. I just can't like it's so much. But you and I were not just here just to talk about the tragedy, but I did want to put it on people's radar. If you have not heard about it, go look up what's going on in North Carolina, And we are going to list a bunch of resources for places that you can go donate and help if that is something that you feel called to do or can do, or anything like that. But it was interesting because as you and I were talking about it, we kind of were having these similar It was like we were communicating telepathically or something, because we were having these similar processes in our mind of the bigger picture of these types of things. And I think, you know, one of the other reasons that we don't really pay attention to things happening is it just feels like we're innundated with just thing after thing after thing after thing, Like we're oversaturated all the time with bad news and you can only take in so much, right, so we kind of shut it down. But when tragedies like this happen. There is something in me that when I start to get just so overwhelmed, I have to think about, Okay, what is this happening for? Like we can just pretend like this is all happening as a fluke, you can, but for me, that doesn't bring me any peace, Like I have to think about the bigger purpose. And I used to kind of get stuck in this place of like, well, if this bad thing is happening, like it's almost felt like punishment, you know, like, well, why is this bad thing happening and whatever? And I don't look at like the people of Asheville and think, oh, they're being punished and this is like you know, they've done something wrong, they've into greatly and they're being cleaned out. I definitely don't look at it at all like that I think that that's what's happening. But I do see some sort of thing happening in our world on a bigger scale of just like deconstruction, and it's made me go, Okay, we're not doing something right here, Like we're missing something as a race, as a human race, and what is the universe trying to show us to get us to move to, to get us to grow into. And the word that both you and I kept coming to with this tragedy is just community, which might sound separately like separately totally.
We found this out.
Because I told her before we started recording that I had been making notes about what I wanted to say, because obviously this can get really deep and dark, and that's not what we want to do here, because it's let's use this as an opportunity to learn and grow as humans. So I was thinking about the idea of community, and I wrote down it's the people, not the place. And you know, we're in a political season and you hear a lot about like we have to protect our community, and I think a lot of people will think that that means like their neighborhood, and that to me, is not what community is.
Community is when.
People that have a set of values or beliefs come together and you can have a global community, you know, like the gay community, the science community, the community of doctors, whatever. And I had written it down and then Kelly posted something today.
On It was about the astrologgy and it was all.
About community, and I was like, this is wild, because we sometimes we're just not on the same page, even when we're talking about the same topics.
Right, and this one we just are.
And that also is just like a ping ping ping from the university maybe like we're supposed to be getting these messages. But and this isn't to be like, oh the go do that. You know, everybody has to do it this way and this is the right way. It's like whatever that means to you. But what was interesting in this experience, this is just a small, small example of this is one of our friends, boyfriends, lives in Asheville and he's lost his house, he's lost everything, he had a kid, they've lost it. It's just like so fucking tragic, and it makes me so sad. And it was killing her to be here and not be able to help them. And they're starting to lose water and they didn't have access to gas anymore, and like the food supply is dwindling. So of course anyone that you love and care about you want to help. In that scenario. She also has a life here though, and a kid and pets and a job and all these things. And it was like immediately she says, I need to go, and we're all like, okay, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, and like everyone kind of jumped in and took their role and it freed her up to be able to go help on a bigger scale.
Which and she was disappearing to a place that literally didn't have self service.
Right. We were like, go do it. We got it, Like yeah.
Don't worry about worry about it, like we'll take care of me.
We got it.
And that felt like nothing to me. I think that's how it felt to you. It was just sort of like uh duh, of course like that. It was like don't even ask, like be gone already and like I've got this part.
I'll take this part.
And it was interesting though to watch everyone have their different roles and it was like kind of all things that I think we and excel in certain areas and that we were able to step in and do our part of it. And it made me go, oh, this is what that is. This is like it sounds so silly and small, but it's like that is what a community is. It's everyone has a job and when you show up for one purpose, for a bigger purpose together and everyone's doing their job, the bigger purpose excels and succeeds and like we're able to help each other win. And I just have felt like this world, it feels like we're missing that so much, and like we're fighting each other instead of helping each other. And that is something that was like a beautiful experience to think about last night, of like, oh, if we can just love on each other and try to work towards the goal and just do our part and our job, then everybody wins.
Obviously, this is only affecting me per really aside from just the emotional trauma that it causes when you see like humans in distress, because truly this could happen, Like this is proof that you never know, Like no one expected this to happen in a landlocked area that's five hundred miles from the coast from a hurricane.
Everyone was caught off guard by this.
Even though there are yeah, I mean they had gotten at Ashville in particularly, gotten a lot of rain the week leading into so the ground was already really soaked, which made it easy for the rain from the hurricane just to bring the trees down because they couldn't sustain the weight. And then all that water's got to go somewhere and it comes down the side of the mountain and it hits the rivers, so no one really thought it was happening. And it just goes to show none of us are free of disaster. Like no matter where you live, there is something the Earth is going to correct things, and it's just what happens. And I think it's a we all need to be prepared for something to happen, and we can get into like a list of things that is recommended by the CDC in places like that. But it's also really important to remember that, like your time is going to come when something really bad is going to happen.
Sadly, life will be life.
In life will be life.
And in the times when it doesn't affect you directly, it's when you need to step in and create good karma and good community and be a fellow human being, even if it's the smallest little thing. Share information on your socials, like if you want to donate, Like if you can't afford to donate, maybe you can tell your friends where they can donate if they so choose to or have the means to do it. And you know, I lived in New York City during nine to eleven and New Yorkers are known as like cold, hard, like sure, yeah, you know, really strong people and like, you know, not they're not in the South.
You're not like waving at people and saying how are you?
You know, you're just getting to your fucking job. But I will tell you I never felt like I lived in a community before that, Like it was real. And you know, I think the thing that was most glaringly obvious, especially in a melting pot like New York, like not.
Everyone looks the same.
You know. It's not like when your church comes together and everyone looks like you and they're like right helping you when your grandma dies. Like this was strangers caring about their neighbors and protecting their community. And the sad thing is is once the tragedy wears off, we kind of forget to act that that way.
Like, so, what is what are the things that we can do?
I don't have the answer to that, but what are the things that we can do we should be thinking about that can prepare us to let that sort of energy rain, you know, so we just continue to get better as a human race versus only responding to the tragedy.
I mean, you said that exactly how I was thinking it in my brain of because I wrote down in my notes it is interesting how we all come together in tragedy and you start to see the beauty in people again because you're helping your neighbor, even if you have different beliefs than them or things like that. And Marvin I talked about that a lot on Wednesday's podcast when we were talking about the astrology and how this whole thing fit into kind of the transitions that our world is going through energetically, and that's going to continue happening, and we're moving into this age of Aquarius. And if that means nothing to you, that's okay. I think it just is a season where you can even look at how divisive and how volatile and how angry everything has been, and I think a lot of people are getting fed up with that, and so like maybe looking even at it as just like let's move out of that. You know, whether you believe in astrology or not, but there is a sense in my body that moving into this next phase of life that maybe we do want to kind of try to get out of the like me me me III space move into like what is my part in the bigger picture? What is my we we will Yeah, and if we come together for the we we we we really all win.
Like it's just so much better as a whole, the whole world is just better.
So I don't know, Yeah, I'm like you, I don't know the answer, but I do have this sense that maybe that is the path to go. And it's reminding me of this reading I had when I was in Bali from this palm reader. And again, that's not something you believe in. That's fine if you don't. If you don't believe in stuff like that. Though, I find it really weird that you would listen.
To this podcast, right because it's like what I talk about all the time.
So anyway, I'm assuming that you might have some you know, some spiritually.
At least some interest.
Yeah, just like whatever it is for you, I don't think it has to be the same for all of us, but just a higher power situation of some kind. And I find a lot of healing in like the healers like that and psychics and intuitives and it really resonates for me, and so that's kind of where I go for guidance a lot of times. But anyway, this palm reader said there's going to be a lot of patastrophic events. I mean, she called a lot of the stuff that's happened, which is very eerie, but you know this can fall under that. To me, she said, a lot of things will happen on the coast of America, like and just with climate change and all of those things, like we're going to have a lot of these big forces of weather events that are going to happen. But the silver lining will be if we can learn to work together. And so again I just thought of that when this happened, of like, Okay, well I have this sense that probably Asheville is going to start doing that and all the places in North Carolina. And we witnessed a friend going and doing it, and it was because of the community we had created back here that she was able to go do that. And so it's like, how do we form communities, whether it's specifically with this event, but also like in your world and in your life, in your day to day, how do you form a community that has a bigger picture process or a bigger picture goal.
I guess I being single, all I have to care for directly is myself and my dogs.
That's it.
Like brass tacks, that is it. And it can be very easy to slit, like let life life and slip into your own habits of selfishness. And you know, and I don't even mean that in a negative way. It's like survival. And I don't even think it has to be where I feel like I need to like volunteer and like be super.
Involved in something.
But if I can think of one nice thing to do for somebody else every week, every day, whatever it is, or maybe it is, I go volunteer once a month or something that will help me help the world, and that energy comes back in ways when I need it, you know, And that is community building, right, And I do think it's like the idea of volunteering. I always hear from people that do it, and when I do it, it's like you feel so good when you when you're done. It's really hard to get yourself there often just to do it, to find the time, but once you've done it, you feel so good, not about yourself, but for what you did. The benefits are actually great for your health, you know. And these times when it is tragedy that we're responding to, I think obviously there are things at hand that, you know, the less fluffy things are going to fall to the wayside because we've got humans to save and a town to rebuild and several towns to rebuild, all those things. But I think that in our normal lives, when things aren't this chaotic, if you can put some good energy into something in your community and help build your community, it just makes it safer and healthier and happier for everybody. And there's so many things that we don't think about that these people are going through. Think about all the missing pets, or all the pets whose parents are gone, or the pets that just got out of the house because the house fell over and they survived or whatever. It is, Like, there's so many things that need to be done that if you really sit down and think about it, you could find something that actually interests you and is a bit selfish that will make you feel good.
Well, Like, look at what calls to you, because there's a reason it calls to you, Like you love animals in a way that obviously like that is part of your calling and purpose, you know, to do something with animals. So like that's a great point. It doesn't have to all be the same thing for all of us. So whatever it is, that's why we all have different skill sets too, though.
That's what I know.
Maybe you have an old car.
Maybe you have an old car that you like haven't gotten around to selling, but like could just donate to somebody in Ashville.
You know there are organizations that does.
I know people are like without homes, yeah.
Water, Yeah, I mean there's a million.
Like if it is a necessity in your life, somebody else needs it right now, you know. Yeah, look around your house, think what do I not need that I have that I'm just holding on too because it can be put to use because people have lost everything. Yeah, it's choose clothes, hats, toilet paper, all of it.
They need it all.
Yeah, those are great points. I'm also obviously going to put places you guys can go donate, but if you feel called or led to participate more than actually just donating money. For me, having the connection of physically doing something often like sings to my soul a little bit more kind of like what you're saying, it just it really does give back to you way more than I think you would ever anticipate. So I just like this idea of community and everyone kind of having a role. It's like it's like in the olden days when everyone like lived in a little village and you had like the dressmaker and the you know, right maker and whatever. It's all those things. It's like our world's just gotten so big and which so disconnected from each other that we like miss our little villages. And so I don't know, find your little village, you know.
Find your little village.
Well, I don't want to line list this stuff and boor you guys with it. So maybe Kelly, I'll send you the this it's the National Institute of Health Office all Disaster preparedness tips. Yeah, but I will, I will stress, like this is an important thing to read.
I need to go through. I'll ad met.
I don't have have a self sufficient like disaster pack. I do have water in my closet, Like that's the one thing I've done in case I have a tornado and the house falls in around me.
There's water in there. Yeah.
They say you need to be prepared for three days okay before help can find you.
Okay.
So I'll put that in the description of the podcast as well for you guys, and if you are in North Carolina or you've had someone impacted by that. We are sending you all the love and please reach out via email to us at the Edge, at velvetegeat Calm if there's anything that we can do or say on here that would help spread the news, give places to donate, whatever it is. I will put a lot of places that you guys can donate to if you want to just financially contribute in the description of this podcast. But I love what you said, Chip, like, if there are ways that you feel led to help or something that calls to you, specifically follow that calling, like there's a reason you have it. So I hope that you follow that. And we're just sending you guys all the love and hope the communities that form really really really help out. I guess I'll position into as you guys are living that it feels like are really weird.
We're all living on the edge of these days.
Yeah, we'll also here's what we'll do. I will also post these on my Instagram and my stories so you guys can go find them, and you can find that at Velvet's Edge on Instagram.
Chip, I'm at Chip DOORSH It's h I P D O R S C H and.
As you guys go into your weekend in community. I'm living on the edge. I hope you always remember to act thought
Today kindly and be prepared to be prepared to bye bye