Soaked

The sun is out and the sky shows a bit of blue in northern California. The temperature here is 44 degrees fahrenheit. Today is Tuesday.

There has been extraordinary rainfall throughout the state of California; and in southern California, the news is saying that the experience is a one-in-a-thousand years event. Rainfall is breaking records that were set in recent moments - like the day before yesterday. If there are doubts about the shift in climate and its cause, they should be put to rest. Our contribution to climate change is showing up in ways that will change some minds, but probably not all. So what that may mean for policy and practice going forward - is unclear.

Hope rests with the generation of doer/seers who are moving with knowledge and intelligence, navigating what needs can be met given the structures that have been built for generations before them. While there are many distractions that keep dividing otherwise strong allies, whether it is race, religion, identities of all kinds that have created distrust about their common humanity, there are those who can see and do beyond the divisions. They are hope.

The poem titled "Found in a Storm" by William Stafford came today:

A storm that needed a mountain
met it where we were:
we woke up in a gale
that was reasoning with our tent,
and all the persuaded snow
streaked along, guessing the ground.

We turned from that curtain, down.
But sometime we will turn
back to the curtain and go
by plan through an unplanned storm,
disappearing into the cold,
meanings in search of a world.

For whatever reason, a feeling that is familiar emerges. We are in the middle of so many storms - individual and collective ones. In some instances, it really feels like we are moving through by "plan through an unplanned storm", literally and figuratively. The plan so far, is fixed by people who happen to have their hand on the levers of fate (ie., positional power and influence over societies across the globe).

It could be different, with less ego, more willingness to listen. The voices of everyday people are clear and consistent. The desire is for very basic things: shelter, food, and a chance to be in service, without fear of reprisal. But complications that arise out of desires to control and define the terms of existence create conditions that make it impossible to meet the basics. Things become complicated and critical.

Then, once in a thousand years, a storm hits a state that is the 7th or so, largest economy in the world. Things are ruined. Lives upended. Everything that is happening is a reminder that there is really very little one can do once the heavens intervene. The aftermath is the invitation to decide what to do next, once everything has been soaked through.