Isaias Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Fresh Start

I think I may have mentioned this feeling yesterday, but once Tropical Storm Isaias moved through our area, the transformation was stunning. Everything felt different; as if we were being given a fresh start. The air, the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the creeks, the gardens – everything was transformed.

Of course, a symbol of transformation is the butterfly. By virtue of its creature story, it embodies the essence of transformation. Starting life out as a caterpillar, it eventually wraps itself in a cocoon, completely dissolves itself into an amorphous goo, and then reconstitutes itself into an entirely new and different creature. One with wings, in fact.

Judging from what I discovered yesterday post-Isaias and witnessed today playing out in our yard, our garden, and in the fields as we walked, it almost seems as if the tropical storm was a catalyst of change. It was almost as if the arrival and fury of that storm initiated any number of cocoons to break open and release those new Beings into the world.

Moth Goddess – Photo: L. Weikel

Butterfly and Moth

The two pictures accompanying this post are of beauties crossing my path – literally – within hours of the storm moving through our area. It was as if the butterflies were breathing a sigh of relief over their release, their rebirth, and they just had to prove to themselves that they could actually do it. They could fly!

Both the Swallowtail and the delicately adorned, pale, butter-colored moth tested their wings, slowly opening and closing them, almost as if they couldn’t quite believe how it felt to both have them and have mastery over them. What purpose they were to serve was an even greater mystery, but somehow they knew it would be something so special that their perceptions of everything would be changed forever.

And they were right.

What if we’re on the brink of having our cocoons broken open as well? Will we learn to fly, too?

Photo: L. Weikel

(T-478)

Photo: L. Weikel

Wow. Well, I mentioned in last night’s post that here in Pennsylvania we’re not used to tropical storms maintaining their ferocity as they march into our area from the south or tornado warnings beeping out on our phones and warning us to ‘take appropriate cover.’ Enter Tropical Storm Isaias – yet another reason to wonder just what we did to so profoundly piss off 2020.

Who’d have imagined a tornado would touch down at the hospital in our county seat of Doylestown? The storm ripped off part of the roof of the on-site daycare center, damaged another pavilion, and tossed about and upended six cars in the parking lot. And that’s just one instance among many reports of a devastating number of trees uprooted and creeks and other bodies of water blowing past their flood stages and inundating everything in their path.

And it does sound as if the full moon did indeed exacerbate the impact this storm had when it slammed into the North Carolina coast as a Category 1 hurricane last night. Storm surges have been devastating and well over 3.5 million households are without electricity. It’s all a bit hard to fathom – a tropical storm at the beginning of August.

Stress Eaters

Just after the height of the storm hit, I walked out onto our porch to take some photos of the storm water cascading across our property. As I stood there in the pouring rain, I was joined by Spartacus. Instead of acting fearful of the storm, he quite adorably seemed more concerned than anything else.

Spartacus – Storm Watcher – Photo: L. Weikel

Then I noticed something even odder. There were a bunch of birds at our feeders! That was pretty much the last thing I expected to see in the midst of the storm. Granted, the absolute worst had probably just peaked – but the rain was still pounding down and strong gusts of wind were whipping the willow behind our barn and making the rest of the trees dance very hard to keep up.

Yet there were these birds, crowding several of my feeders. My heart went out to them as I sort of chuckled to myself. I could relate. Clearly they were stress-eating; stuffing in as much as they could while the getting was good. Living for the moment.

Stress eaters – Photo: L. Weikel

Rampaging Tohickon

After the storm passed and bright sunshine made everything look and feel as though it’d just been power-washed, the after-effects were startling. The Tohickon overflowed its banks and was rapaciously engaged in transporting logs and all sorts of other bobbing doo-dads and detritus to the Delaware River.

Many roads were impassable, either as a result of flooded creeks and streams or massive trees giving up the ghost and dragging electrical wires down with them.

The Delaware practically had enough trees floating down it to qualify as a forest itself.

Tohickon Creek – Photo: L. Weikel

It’s Only August

While I’m profoundly grateful we were spared the worst of it, I have to admit, this does give me paust. It’s only August. That seems pretty darn early to me to be dealing with a storm of this magnitude. Given the attitude of 2020 so far, I don’t think I want to challenge worse – that’s for sure.

It’s kind of amazing to contemplate just how devastatingly effective Mother Earth is at putting us in our place. It doesn’t take much. We really are a vulnerable species when you get right down to it, which makes me wonder. Is that why we’re often such bullies when it comes to Nature?

I hope everyone is safe and dry. I’d say I hope you’re warm, too – but if you have no electricity, warm may not exactly be the state you prefer. I hope you’re safe, dry, and comfortable. Take good care of yourselves – and don’t forget to feed your birds.