mutual aid

From Rednecks Rising Media
September 29, 2025

On Surviving Helene, Building Heaven on Earth, and Seeing God in Each Other

Heaven on Earth

“Does anyone have a boat?” Asked the message that flashed across my screen around 4pm on Tuesday, August 17th, 2021. Haywood County was being pummeled by Tropical Storm Fred and two dear friends of mine needed help. My friend Jon described how the Pigeon River was raging through his sister, Natasha’s, home, and how the two of them were taking refuge on top of the bunkbeds in one of the kids’ rooms. The only road in or out was under water.

It was 24 hours before they were able to be rescued. All around us, neighbors had lost everything while climbing trees and trailer roofs to stay alive. When we were finally able to hug them, Jon told us how the RV where he had been living in his sister’s backyard had washed away, containing everything he owned: clothes, electronics, irreplaceable artwork and family photos.

It took the state a week to ask for help, and nearly a month before the federal government responded after the Pigeon River transformed into a ‘Life-Threatening Flood Wave.’ While waiting for the government to take action in the weeks that followed, I had my first experience with what Rebecca Solnit describes in her book, A Paradise Built in Hell. Something new started to sprout from the destruction: hot showers in the parking lot; recovering, restoring, and returning family photos to the people who were featured in them; three hot meals a day; a community center full of supplies, from dehumidifiers and generators to shovels and snacks. Although I am not a religious person, I consider myself deeply spiritual, and it felt to me as if the Divine presence of Universe’s love was tangible in those days following Fred. I could feel that Divine presence as members of our community broke bread together, cried together, and laughed together in the rubble of their past lives.

Then state officials showed up, sneering at the sight of neighbors caring for neighbors. Like a kid stomping on a sandcastle, Mark Pless stormed in and yelled about shutting down our ‘communist agenda.’ It became clear to me then that, in a system that’s designed around a pay-to-play version of staying alive, feeding and caring for our neighbors without shame and limits in the aftermath of a climate catastrophe is the kind of radical action that is seen as a “communist agenda.”

The most poignant memory I have of that time is of sobbing on the floor of the small Methodist church in Cruso, sharing my despair with the pastor. I had caught a glimpse of Heaven on Earth, I told him. It was there in the auditorium of that community center, in the muddy photos that were taped to the walls, in the to-go boxes being packed up to take into the hollers, in the sound of laughter echoing over the tables, in the stacks of 5-gallon buckets and pallets of water bottles, in scrappy neighbors showing up to help each other dig out the muck. That glimpse cracked something open inside of me.

There it is! I had thought. Isn’t building “Heaven on Earth” the whole point of our time here? I thought that’s what we were all working towards. After being so close to a “paradise built in hell,” I found myself sobbing on the floor of a church, wracked with grief and confusion, wondering how it could be possible for us to manifest that kind of raw connection and humanity, only to have it snatched away by folks in positions of power for no reason other than sheer cruelty.

We Are All We Got; We Are All We Need

Like a recurring dream, when Helene crashed down last year, both Heaven and Hell returned together. On October 8th, 2024, I wrote this update:

Our boil water advisory was reactivated, my sister was informed that she is now unemployed along with so many others who don’t have a job to go back to, my partner is throwing up sick from who-knows-what after cleaning up property on Balsam, and self-proclaimed “advocates” are using our story as fodder for their personal and political agendas without listening or even pausing to make space for our grief and our pain. We find ourselves in the next layer of this horror story.

And yet, I had coffee with an old friend, and cried a deluge of tears. We hugged for a long time and talked about what it means to be human. We didn’t have the answer, but we knew it had something to do with remembering each other, and coming home to ourselves.

And I met a new friend who delivered solar kits to us so folks can charge their phones and have light even in the hollers that are still dark. And we got two LifeStraw community water filters at the center, just in time for the renewed boil advisory — like God themselves is working through the mutual aid networks on the ground. My heart is broken wider, deeper, more brutally than I ever imagined possible; and yet, I see the Divine everywhere.

We reciprocated the love that’s been shared with us by Eastern Kentucky, sharing back with them in return because it’s easier to feel the depth of abundance when the confines of capitalist materialism are stripped away. It feels good to show up for those who show up for us. God can be felt in our solidarity.

We have the funds to make it possible for a friend to get car repairs in McDowell County so they can continue to show up for their community. A man wept over a generator that got delivered to his home that’s been without power for 11 days. And, we ate collard greens and roast and taters made with love in the kitchen of the Pigeon Center. Even among the flood of bad news that follows the literal flood: loss of income, sickness, exploitation and appropriation of our suffering… the Divine can be found everywhere.

With Helene, there was something about the manifestation of Heaven on Earth the second time around that seemed to make it more expansive, with more sticking power. This time, Heaven wasn’t just a fleeting moment, but it was an entire mycelium network, growing and healing together, spreading the pores of life that we refuse to give up on — like morels, growing and thriving in the ashes of what used to be. Instead of just a glimpse of Heaven’s light this time, there was a constellation of vivid stars guiding the way.

A constellation called “Heaven on Earth,” that stretched across manmade borders and manufactured divisions, made up of stars, each one an unexpected, blinding reflection of God’s light:

  • the Sacred truckloads of gas, cash, radios, and supplies ferried in by comrades from Chattanooga, North Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania

  • the Sacred Queer Appalachian medics who coordinated from Chicago to Waynesville to get us critical supplies for our medically vulnerable neighbors

  • the Sacred Appalachian anarchists and abolitionists who said “cash for fuel? we got you.”

  • the Sacred Black women who opened their historic, sacred building to the community as a place of refuge and salvation

  • the Sacred strangers on the other side of the screen, with the black and red flags on their hats, who kept showing up night after night to ask “what do you need?” and acted accordingly

When I did not know how I would go on, what the next day would hold, how we would make solutions for the colossal problems we were facing, a little star would appear with the miracle of its light, shining hope into the darkness. I saw God there, in the light of the anarchists, in the communists, in each of us working to see each other, hold each other, and come home to ourselves.

Reflections 1 Year Later

I came home from Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair on Saturday night and just cried and cried — from the raw connection, the humanity, the Divine Synchronicity of it all. Returning from a weekend full of reflection on community and survival one year after Helene’s impact, I find myself reeling from the juxtaposition and fullness of grief and hope.

It felt like we were walking each other home to ourselves, and I was shaken by the sensation that I had once again received the gift of seeing God this weekend, of being among the constellation.

I saw God’s light there, shining stars in the faces of friends and comrades from across the state and region, finally sharing physical space together after a solid year of sharing:

  • countless hours on working calls together,
  • enough tears to fill the oceans,
  • tens (hundreds) of thousands of supplies and dollars,
  • stories,
  • skills,
  • knowledge,
  • solidarity,
  • dreams,
  • and care.

There were so many little synchronicities and full circle moments that it felt impossible to ignore the Divine presence of Universe’s love. Almost as if God was saying “Aha! Do you see now?” Gesturing to the constellation as a larger timeline reflecting in space the lessons learned, how far we’ve come and how far behind we still are.

Time and space folded in on each other, eras of my life touching like colliding supernovae.

I was unexpectedly reunited with a friend from a different decade and a different place, and I saw God there — in the glowing version of themselves that they have grown into.

While handing a copy of the anthology to the photographer whose photo graces the cover (by sheer Cosmic Fate after a friend submitted the photo on their behalf), I realized that the photographer was accompanied by two students from four years ago — students I had walked alongside as they started their own Sunrise Movement chapter, now grown up and still showing up in the collective work. There was God! And there was God again, as they shared the story of the photo — taken in Haywood County — and I realized its name, “No Politics,” was inspired by a beloved elder and mentor of mine who I had known years before Rednecks Rising was ever dreamed of. I could feel the Universe’s laughter echoing around me: “Do you see now, you’re still co-creating this reality?”

It was a coworker from a different lifetime who reached out in the wake of Helene, bringing a lifeline to be found in the Gospel of Mutual Aid. This weekend, I saw the Divine light in them again, as they shared their wisdom and were recognized for their immeasurable labor after the storm.

And God was there as I met the pastor of the church where we stood for the bookfair — a pastor who turned out to be a dear friend of the same pastor who once held space for me to sob over Heaven on Earth, on the floor of a church in 2021. I saw God back then, and I saw the Universe again now, whispering: “The Dream Isn’t Dead.”

I saw God in each of the artists and authors and human beings who shared their work with the collective, shaping the vision of From the Holler to the Sea. They were co-creating history in the form of an anthology — those artists, God in Collaboration with Themselves. The Sacred Universe was there in their expressions and experiences as they held that piece of history in their hands, sharing their tears and smiles and everything in between.

I felt God as I spent the day with my life partner and tiny human by my side, surrounded by friends, giving 80 hugs, selling dozens of books to fund mutual aid and amplify global interconnectedness, crying more than once, singing in a collective chorus of liberation.

Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic but I swear, I saw God there.

I saw God in the Anarchists.

Comments

Earth Rocker (not verified) Sat, 10/04/2025 - 05:11

We have to figure out what exactly is happening in Asheville...

anon (not verified) Sat, 10/04/2025 - 09:23

In reply to by Earth Rocker (not verified)

"These Fremen, religious maniacs, eh? They’re a volatile lot, ready to die for their prophet." He chuckled.

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