Right now the air in Portland is white. Flakes of ash float down randomly. The fire in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge has gone from a carefree firecracker 5 days ago to 30,000 acres of wildly burning mountainsides. I cannot even fathom what that means and what it will look like when this fire is finally extinguished.
My throat is raw, my eyes are red and my raspberries are shriveled and burnt. 95 to 100 degree temperatures have halted and changed the garden. For some reason they did not subdue a 15 year old boy from throwing fire crackers into a tinder dry canyon on Eagle Creek.
My city is covered in ash and the air so thick one cannot open windows on a hot summer night. We are captive to this incendiary. We listen to the reports as it grows and we can only pray for rain.
Meanwhile on the other side of North America in the land which we call the US there is a flood washing through Texas and a Hurricane of great magnitude about to run into Florida.
Fires burn all over my beloved state. People in other places have lost homes. The "leader" pronounces that young immigrants will not be provided safe haven. He will build an expensive wall before helping disaster victims with federal funds.
We are a people without a country in the sense that we are floating in a no man's land of uncertainty, capricious capitalism and selfish greed.
There are places one can go to be with sane people. It is a great comfort to go there, meditate in quiet, practice yoga and mindful movement. It is a comfort to be with children who are innocent of this mess. The hope is that they will become aware soon and live a life accordingly, finding ways from fossil fuels and incessant consumption.
