devastation Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Aqueduct in Point Pleasant, PA 2 Sept 2021 – Photo: L. Weikel

Filled to the Brim

No matter where you look, it seems we’re filled to the brim. Our creeks and rivers are overflowing with water. Our forests are filled with the hot fury of fire. Our hearts are filled with shock, rage, fear, and hopefully, equal or greater measures of love, compassion, and hope.

I don’t have a lot to say tonight.

I’m always amazed at the brilliance of the blue skies the morning after a storm of great fury, be it a blizzard or a hurricane. Your average, run-of-the-mill snowstorm or rain event can come and go and the next day the skies may retain their cranky gray visage. But not following a storm of great consequence.

Just like a mother who has bitten her tongue one too many times, Mother Nature occasionally unleashes the accumulation of atmospheric energy and clears the decks. She withholds nothing. She lets us have it. And then, forgiving and forward-looking, she lets it all go and moves on. The sparkling clarity left behind is her gift to us.

A reminder that no matter how dark and furious things can get, the sun does come out again. The skies do clear. The air once again becomes breathable and invigorating.

Tohickon Creek at Point Pleasant – Photo: L. Weikel

Around Us

I only ventured out a few miles from our home today. So many roads were – and remain – closed. I’ve yet to get a glimpse of the Lenape Sipu (Delaware River). But I did manage to sneak a peak at where my beloved Tohickon Creek flows into the Delaware in Point Pleasant.

It looks like the power of the Tohickon pulled some boards off the aqueduct that crosses over it just before the creek merges with the river. Just standing on the bridge to take the photo, I could feel the power of the churning waters below me.

As can be seen below, water simply cascading down the hill without a discernible path to follow pounded the roadway so relentlessly that it caused it to buckle.

River Road, Point Pleasant, PA – Photo: L. Weikel

Carrying On

It’s shocking to consider that we were only hit with the ‘remnants’ of Hurricane Ida. My mind reels at the plight of those who were scathed by nature’s fury not only here – in devastating loss of life and home – but even more so in Louisiana, Mississippi, and elsewhere down south. I cannot imagine enduring temperatures where the heat index is reaching 107 during the day and yet there remains no running water, no electricity (and therefore no air conditioning), no lights at night, and little hope of anything being restored anytime soon.

How does one carry on in that situation? Blue skies surely can’t be enough. Or maybe they can be. When we’ve lost everything, maybe blue skies – and the intangible hope they reflexively bring us – are precisely what our souls require.

Tangle of wildflowers & white butterflies – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-85)

Measure of Guilt

If you live pretty much anywhere on the East Coast, I’m pretty sure you experienced one of those perfect September days today that’s hard to overstate. The hint of fall puts just the slightest, ever so subtle edge to the air when a breeze rustles your hair and cools you down after mowing the lawn. I feel some measure of guilt when I begin to write about days like today when I see the suffering occurring elsewhere in our country.

The fires in California, Oregon, and Washington are terrifying in their devastation. I find it hard to wrap my mind around what it must feel like to see fire rampaging up a mountain toward my home or hear the otherworldly roar of the inferno as it voraciously consumes everything in its path – and sets its sights on me. Or my husband and children. Or my pets.

The photos of the firefighters, splayed out helter skelter on the coolness of a concrete sidewalk, the air all around them a distorted version of pumpkin spice are beyond disturbing. The stories of people being forced to run – literally attempt to outrun a fire on macadam that burns the shoes off their feet – only to discover their loved ones turned back or never made it out of the driveway boggle the mind.

Dead End

I wrote a bunch of words since writing the paragraph above and I just had to delete them. Yeah, I can mouth the words of trying to find some positive arising out of this devastation and heartache – wisdom, perhaps? Appreciation for what’s really, truly, deeply important? A forced re-set of our life?

But it just rings hollow tonight. Anything I might write as I sit here in my comfy home surrounded by my beloved animals with plenty of food in my refrigerator and pantry, a cool breeze of fresh air pouring in through my windows, is warped by my perception – which is admittedly extremely narrow and unbelievably fortunate.

As I said at the beginning, I cannot imagine the terror of being forced to evacuate my home under the threat of a wildfire.

There are a lot of simply awful things people are being forced to endure this year. Yeah, people get sick and die all the time. But not like this. And yeah, wildfires happen every year. But not like these. And hurricanes form and threaten and pound upon the coast every year. But not as early and often as this year.

We must hang in there. No matter how hard or awful things feel. No matter how much we lose. We must hold onto each other. We have to find a way.

(T-440)