Weaving Wholeness Through the Apocalypse

This article elaborates on the concept of the “archetype of the apocalypse” as first posited by Edward Edinger. The author shares her personal experience of an “inner apocalypse” caused by the devastating “outer apocalypse” of the Dixie Wildfire in rural Northern California in 2022. Indigenous Californians Daisy and Lilly Baker, Mountain Maidus, from the same area, coped with the devastating losses that came from westward expansion and white settlement of their ancestral homelands over a hundred years ago, through holding steadfastly to their cultural practices, in particular, basket weaving. This “survivance,” as practiced by the Bakers, nourished a renaissance and land rehabilitation led by the Mountain Maidu Consortium on the same land today.