Of drowning and howling

The gale force wind is humming like a giant angry bee outside the kitchen window.  For the past 24 hours.  I want to know the exact point that this noise originates for no better reason than I might be able to somehow, unrealistically eliminate it.  The more I am aware of how it disturbs me, the more it winds me up.  I can choose my reaction to it, I remind myself.

The past week has been very grey, very wet.  I have had a virus and have been feeling exhausted.  I have not had the contact time with the hedgerows that so replenishs me and also enables me to feel creatively expansive and grounded all at the same time.  It also helps me to feel more part of my community.  My local ecosystem.  Which I will describe in another post... ;-)

I feel a hysteria in the winds today.  A chaotic dance.  I sit still, comfortable and warm in the central heating of our 1940's semi and yet my senses are very stirred up and tuned into the tempest outside.  I worry for our chickens - Flo, Pixie and Grace (rescued from the battery farm back in the early Autumn).  They are out in this gale, their feathers almost blown from their bodies.  They don't go into their shelter, they carry on pecking and mooching.

We are vulnerable like any other animal to the storms and floods and desertification that is so common on our planet.  This week I have seen some agonising scenes of people on rooftops of houses awaiting rescue from the floods of Brisbane.   The most poignant video clip for me was of a woman in the floods in Brazil, trying to swing to safety on a rope across a flooded road with her little dog underneath her right arm..  She fell from the rope but managed to reach the other side and be lifted to safety, her dog did not.  He was swept away.  As I watched, I realised I was no longer detached and at a distance from these events.  I was participating in them and reaching out through the storms.

Hundreds of people have drowned in the Brazilian floods.  I light candles and say words of love to their souls.  You are not alone.  You will be held in light.  You will be dry and safe now.  I feel maternal, concerned for their safe transition from earthly bodies into energy or spirit.  Whatever happens at death or thereafter, I just feel that sending love and intentions of safety allow me to contribute to a sense of peace.

I hear the grief of the loss of lives in the floods all over the world in these gales outside my house today.
Wind howler tells me of drowning, of families separated, of unexpected successful rescues and of people adapting to a radically changed landscape.   Our local landscape provides so much for us, be it aesthetic enjoyment, the natural seasonal changes, an outlet for physical exercise, a means to belong to a community or simply to identify as a location for our home.

For indigenous peoples and people who follow earth spirituality paths, the landscape has spirits and energy that can be communicated with and respected through ritual in particular.  I wonder what an aboriginal view of the floods in Brisbane at this time would reveal about the spirits of that area?  There are environmental and scientific explanations for the floods which cannot be ignored but I feel that the other stories of the land from the unseen dimensions need to be heard too.  For these stories can help to provide a context to the struggle.  Maybe not when in the eye of the storm, but in time.  For those of us who are not right in the middle of the chaos and destruction, we have the benefit of some space and distance to explore feelings and information and make connections to what is going on.

So now the chickens are safely tucked into their house and the dark has descended on this grey Saturday, my hearth will be lit with damp kindling and I will not complain of the water that hisses as I try to light the fire for I have the luxury of a dry home.  I extend this feeling of safety to those uprooted at this time by the waters and winds.  May you be safe.  Blessed Be.