70\u00a0 bar steep fall 29.80\u00a0 6mph NW\u00a0 Dew-point 62\u00a0\u00a0 Summer, a thunder storm watch until 6PM.\u00a0 One’s already rolled through our area.<\/p>\n
First Quarter of the Thunder Moon<\/p>\n
The Thunder Moon has seen its first storm even before it became gibbous.\u00a0\u00a0 When I went downstairs today to shut off and unplug the computer, as I always do before a storm, it made me think.<\/p>\n
In cities it is possible to live a life pretty isolated from the natural world.\u00a0 Yes, you get wet when it rains if you can’t drive from covered parking to covered parking, but it’s usually a short term experience.\u00a0 Out of the car.\u00a0 Dash across the parking lot or sidewalk into the shelter of a building.\u00a0 Yes, up here in the northland you can’t avoid the snow and the cold, but there again, unless you go outside with snowshoes or hiking boots, your exposure does not interrupt your day very much.<\/p>\n
Out here in the exurbs, where the cities reach has become tenuous, houses have 2 acres, 5 acres, 10 acres between them.\u00a0 When the thunderstorm looms, it looms over you.\u00a0 A lightning strike on or near the house would send a surge throughout our circuitry blowing out sensitive devices.\u00a0 The computer holds so much of my life and work that I protect it.\u00a0 But, from what?<\/p>\n
Yes.\u00a0 Mother nature.\u00a0 She’s whimsical and unpredictable.\u00a0 No matter what we do somewhere the river rises.\u00a0 Electricity coming in a storm carries a voltage of 100 million to 1 billion volts.\u00a0 It can reach 50,000 degrees fahrenheit.\u00a0\u00a0 Four times as hot as the sun’s surface.\u00a0 A hurricane generates unbelievable power and as they intensify they endanger increasing amounts of our wealth and health as a country.<\/p>\n
Just think back over the last couple of months.\u00a0 The cyclone in Burma.\u00a0 The earthquakes in China.\u00a0 The worst natural disaster in our history, Katrina, was not long ago.\u00a0 These events kill and or disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.\u00a0 The earthquake in Pakistan or the Kobe earthquake in Japan.\u00a0 Huge, nation altering events.\u00a0 The tsunami in the Indian Ocean.\u00a0 We remember these not only for their human suffering and property loss, but because they remind us that we are not in control of the planet.<\/p>\n
Our own little apocalypse, death, comes from the evolution of life.\u00a0 Life comes with a sell-by date.\u00a0 We are not in control even of our own lives.\u00a0 This is either frightening or invigorating.<\/p>\n
I choose invigoration, so when I head downstairs to shut off the computer I say a little prayer of thanks for the miracle of mother earth and my chance for a brief stay here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
70\u00a0 bar steep fall 29.80\u00a0 6mph NW\u00a0 Dew-point 62\u00a0\u00a0 Summer, a thunder storm watch until 6PM.\u00a0 One’s already rolled through our area. First Quarter of the Thunder Moon The Thunder Moon has seen its first storm even before it became gibbous.\u00a0\u00a0 When I went downstairs today to shut off and unplug the computer, as I … Continue reading Say a Little Prayer for the Miracle of Mother Earth<\/span>