Mount Saint Helens
Life after death.
I am clearly in another world as I stand here looking over the devastation in this valley. Such trauma. Yet there is an acceptance in the earth. A wisdom beyond our imagination. A dance She does that baffles me. How does She stay in character? How does She maintain Her rhythm? Her patience, Her end game? How does She continue to hold space and lovingly tend Her children?
There is no feeling here of fear or pity or heartbreak, only the lingering horror of a trauma gone past and now a time for focusing on life. Her children are re-awakening and She is lovingly watching them take their first steps.
Such beauty in life resurrected. Flowers poking through the ash.
Her rhythm, Her patience, the magnitude of healing and love She holds.
May 18, 1980 Mount Saint Helens exploded, knocking 1300 feet of its top and devastating all life in its valley, 230 square miles of death. [Fifty-seven people were killed, 200 houses were demolished along with 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways and 185 miles of highway. As many as 1,500 elk and 5,000 deer were killed and 12 million salmon died.]
But life is re-emerging. And, we had better be humbled by a Mother Earth so strong and patient and magnificent.
This is a different world for me. A world adapting, evolving, reconciling, re-appearing from death. This is survival. These are our lessons. This is Her wisdom.
Prairie lupine was the first flower to come back. It took nitrogen from the air and then it dropped it into the soil for other plants, flowers, trees to grow. Now I see st john’s wort, fields of yarrow, arnica, queen anne’s lace, fleabane, monkey flower, aster and hawkweed! Pine has returned along with alder and willow and the fir trees. Birds have returned to nest. Herds of elk and deer are found grazing on clover and grasses.
Mother Earth is healing Herself. Tending to the innocence of Her land.
Resurrection. Spiraling energies of life. The soul of the Mother. Peace.