OUR BATTLE TO SAVE OUR BUILDINGS FROM THE HOWLING WINDS and TORRENTIAL RAINS OF A FURIOUS STORM IN THE NIGHT
Going through overwhelming super storms is a major wake up call to facing the terrible realities of climate change
THE DAWNING LIGHT, Volume 8, # 730 Wednesday, January 24, 2024
STILL MOUNTAIN CHRONICLES # 43 Stories by Chinmayan about our life and adventures in pursuit of simple living freedom and our service to the world in a small rural mountain Meditation retreat center
All images courtesy of Pixabay
Waking Up To The Realities Of The Powerful Effects Of Super Storms
As the latest in a series of atmospheric river rainstorms rages outside, I have come to our meditation hall in the early hours before dawn to light a fire in the big black wood stove.
Beautiful orange flames are dancing behind its clear glass door, as the fire catches and rises up from its carefully laid bed of paper and kindling, gets hot and starts spreading warmth through the hall.
This storm is so powerful, like the few before it, that one “severe weather advisory” after another has been flashing across the screen of our phones,
with warnings of dangerous high winds and many inches of rain all through the coming day, and night on into the following day.
Here on Still Mountain, we have already taken some severe damage and losses from over the top super storms.
Our Battle To Save Our Buildings From The Ravages of A Super Storm
Two mornings ago, during the previous storm, Ani came into my tiny house in emergency mode and roused me from a deep blissful slumber
I had fallen asleep the night before to howling winds and rain pounding on the roof with such fury that my little home was rocking back and forth on its wheels like a ship riding high waves on a stormy sea.
“You gotta get up! “ she practically screamed as she shook me awake. “You won’t believe how bad it is! We are about to lose the Bundle Shop!”
I threw on my clothes, boots and rain gear and followed her out into the storm still raging outside.
As I walked through the rain, through puddles deep as lakes with muddy shores, I saw that our orderly little world of the day before was radically changed.
Our tractor shed had been torn apart as if hit by a tornado, with pieces still flying around and flapping in the roaring wind.
The roof of our store room, which has withstood years of storms, was ripped open and gone, with rain pouring in.
The heavy tarp roof of our newly built Bundle Shop was peeled almost all the way off as the high winds were still tearing at it.
We focused all our energy on trying to save it.
As rain pelted our coats with so many little bombs of ice cold drops that it was hard to see or even hear each other, we worked to pull the tarp back up over the big arched roof.
After a battle against the wind, we got it back up but we knew the moment we let go that it would be torn off again.
I will never forget seeing Ani standing in the shop door, literally pulling the two leading edges of the flapping tarp to herself, as she was being thrown around and almost lifted off her feet.
I knew I had to do something quick or this was going to end up as a futile and tragic situation.
I ran into our main building’s big wood shop and grabbed a one inch thick by 100 foot long truck rope from the rope locker.
I hurried across the now swampy yard, yelling at Ani, “Hold on just a little longer! I have an idea…”
After tying one end of the rope to one of the posts by the shop door, I walked along its sides, back and front, pulling the rope tight against the tarp, going round and round it several times, pulling it tighter and tigher.
By then, Ani was thoroughly soaked, cold and exhausted and left me to finish, while she went back inside to get warm.
I kept winding the rope against the outer walls of the shop a few more times and finally tied it off.
Though the wind still clawed at the roof tarp, the many rounds of rope were holding it down and in place. We had saved the shop.
But the tractor shed looked like it had been hit by a bomb and was completely destroyed, while the roof of the store room had a huge hole in it, exposing the front half to the storm.
I was soaked through. My hands felt like pieces of frozen ice and i was utterly exhausted and could do no more even if there was plenty that needed doing.
It would have to wait for sunny skies and calm days.
I felt like I had been squeezed through a tiny funnel by a giant and then dropped into an ice bound river.
My Takeaways From Going Through Intense Storms and Overwhelming Weather
I realized some important things, starting with the biggie, which is that Mother Nature is incredibly powerful…as this storm clearly demonstrated for me.
I realized that I had grown complacent and taken our normal winter weather for granted so much that I couldn’t even conceive of having to go through seriously intense and even life threatening storms.
Probably like most people, I would see these awesome natural events, such as floods, tornadoes and hurricanes on the evening news and unconsciously think “that will never happen here”.
Now I know it definitely can, and that I need to be grateful for the normal weather, which I will never complain about again.
This experience also brings home in a visceral way that climate change and the threats it has to the future of humanity is real.
The Story Of The Children In A Burning House
It brings home to me the likely future we all will have to endure and try to survive in if humanity as a whole fails to band together to face the severe threats facing us.
If we don’t, we are no wiser than the story of three children who were so engrossed in playing video games together, that they failed to notice that the house they were in was being consumed by a fire.
It had started in the basement as a small flicker from faulty wiring that jumped to piles of junk. It had grown so big so fast once it got going but remained completely unnoticed by the children.
When they finally turned from their games to face the flames, it was already too late…there was no escape possible as the entire house collapsed and they were killed by thick smoke and the intense heat.
Now when I see the severe out of control weather events happening more and more around the world that causes so much loss and suffering that those affected have to bear, my heart floods with compassion.
At higher levels of consciousness it is abundantly clear to me that whatever harms anyone actually affects all of us.
As the saying goes…” If you are not shaken to the core, if these events do not frighten you and spur you to action, then you are simply not paying enough attention.”
Too many are being affected by increasingly powerful weather events for any of us to keep ignoring it, to keep insisting its all a hoax and we can continue with business as usual.
My message to myself and anyone who will listen is….”Let’s not be like those children who could have easily saved themselves if they were paying attention and took action…Let’s not be so absorbed in pursuing our dreams and the distractions of daily life that we end up burning to death in our collapsing house.”
Calligraphy by Chinmayan
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