Sometimes, we need to be reminded how lucky we are.
It’s hard, in these days of destruction and disintegration — these early years of colonialism’s half-life, as toxic as those of any nuclear fallout. We have watched, borne witness, bent beneath this burden, as deadly changes have accelerated so rapidly that in half a decade, our seasons and climate now scarcely resemble anything that has gone before.
It’s not merely the inconvenience that accompanies these dangerous changes, although there is that, too, of course. But the real pain attends the constant stream of deaths, small and less so, that such transformations entail: fields starved for water and burning up in the heat; topsoil ripped away by trickster winds now here year-round; trees dead and dying, no crops for planting and even the eponymous red willows giving up their ghosts because this drought is worse than anything this land has seen in twelve hundred years and more. Such storms as we do get are dangerous now, even as they deliver precious little of the medicine they once held so routinely.
And there is always, always, the spectre of wildfire, especially at this time of year.
And still, they come, unmasked and unvaccinated, invade, take and steal and rob the land of this place of every resource, every drop — and have the gall to demand more.
The land cannot support it. Not now, not ever, but especially not in these days of death so near the door.
And so it’s easy to fixate upon the dangers that lurk just outside the gate, down the road, across the mesa and down the Gorge, upland and outland too. But there have been more immediate disasters here, and not so very long ago, and we can never forget the lessons they have to teach us about prepared to face, to defend against, to survive more elemental risks.
Wings shot the photo above late in this season in 2003, what was undoubtedly one of those iconic summer days: hot, sunny, but with the midday thunderheads building steadily above the peaks. It’s hard to tell, given the giant smoke plume that is the image’s focal point, but the blues to right show a sky heavy with the possibility of rains to come.
On that day, that possibility would not be anywhere near enough.
In the month that this occurred, I was still on the East Coast, although I would be heading back this way before the year was out. I know of the events only through his stories and the photos, but he remembers that day with the remarkable clarity that so often attends catastrophe. He and another shop owner were standing outside, lounging against the wall beneath the warm sun, chatting about everything and nothing during a lull in business traffic.
A sudden crack, and the mountain burst into flame.
And that is one of the risks of the rainy season here: lightning. In an ordinary year, there may be many small, relatively momentary ignitions, extinguished almost instantaneously by the ensuing torrential rains.
These are not ordinary years.
Now, lightning poses the kind of risks that it did on that rainless day eighteen years ago, elemental risks that hold all the power of such spirits — earth, air, fire, water — and sweep across the land, consuming everything in their path.
Now, nearly two full decades later, we can still see the burn scars from our living room windows.
This year, we have been granted a gift with regard to those same scars: a small measure of healing, as a new and vulnerable green has taken root in some of the dead places. It’s a reminder that the same elemental forces capable of absolute destruction are also the very powers responsible for creation: for birth, for growth, for life.
At this moment, the clouds are building to the east once more, a thundering wall of slate riding above and between the peaks. As fiery as the sun has been this day, there have been no flames here, only an earth drying once more in the wind and the light. Perhaps this storm will bring the water these fragile blades and branches still need so desperately.
But elemental gifts require respect for elemental risks. It’s a lesson the outside world needs to learn, once and for all.
~ Aji
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