The Power of Nature

We had the first thunderstorm of summer last night.  The wind howled, the rain came down in sheets, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled.  When I awoke in the morning, the clouds were gone, the streets were wet, and most everything was still as-is.  It was a storm, but it wasn’t a bad one.

Today, I mowed the lawn (once the summer sun had dried up most of the rain) and I found a baby bird in the grass, likely having fallen from his nest in the overnight storm.  The bird was still alive and seemed to be doing well — and a few adult birds watched me as I neared the baby, so I hope the parents knew it was there.  I worried about the bird, of whether I should try to put it back in its nest, but the nest was too high and if those adult birds were its parents, then it had mom and dad watching after it still.  While I had gotten through the storm just fine, my feathered friend had not done so well.

The storms here in central Canada have certainly worsened with climate change.  There have always been violent storms when I was growing up, but the frequency and severity of these storms has increased in the last ten years or so.

I still remember the first time I saw a storm so violent that it had snapped trees in half and torn others straight out of the ground.  It wasn’t a tornado — we don’t get them here — it was just a violent storm.  When I realized that entire trees had been knocked over, I had gotten on my bike and went on a ride through the neighbourhood, assessing the damage.

Nowadays, a snapped tree means nothing.  Just last summer, a tree across the street from my house cracked and then split in half during a summer storm.  A couple trees down the street had fallen over, destroying fences.  I drove past them, barely giving them a second glance.

I think it’s easy to ignore the awesome power of nature, especially when we are comfy and cosy in our houses and apartments.  We barely notice nature unless it does something unexpectedly destructive.  Right now, huge swaths of Alberta (a province here in Canada) are still in flames.  Forest fires are burning even closer to home, with several running rampant in my province of Manitoba.

But as I sit, comfy and secure in my house, I can’t help but think of that bird, of how one strong gust turned its world upside down.  That one gust could have even ended the bird’s life — I will check on it tomorrow to see how it’s doing, if it’s even still alive.

When a thunderstorm happens, I love turning off all the lights, opening the curtains, and watching the violence of wind and rain.  I love the sound of heavy drops pelting the roof and windows.  Sometimes the brutality of nature can make me worried, even when I’m safely in my house.  After all, houses are never completely safe — the wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alberta, make that clear.  The falling trees after a violent storm show just how close people are from getting hurt in a storm, even if they’re in their houses.

But even in the fearsome violence of nature, there is life.  Even now, in the charred remains of the forests of Alberta, insects are hard at work, creating new life in the devastation.  Pinecones have opened and will soon being the process of growing into trees.  Animals will soon return.  Even in nature’s darkest hour, there is still life and activity.  There is beauty in destruction.  There is life in the aftermath of the power of nature.

And the next time we have a violent thunderstorm here, I’ll put on a pot of tea and snuggle up with my lover as we watch nature put on its spectacle.  I will worry about the roof and the windows, about the possibility of hail or heavy rain causing damage, of me being like that baby bird — helpless in the face of nature’s power.  But I will also get a thrill from the brilliant flashes of lighting and the wall-shaking rumble of thunder.  I’ll snuggle up close to my lover and we’ll cuddle.  Like the insects in the forest fires of Fort McMurray, my lover and I will be a spot of life and calm in a sea of nature’s chaos.

Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Seduced by My Best Friend’s Dad (co-written with Sandra Claire). He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.

Inspiration

by Jean Roberta



To inspire literally means to draw air into the lungs. For the ancient Greeks, inspiration was given by the gods to selected mortals, who were deemed worthy to receive sacred revelations and transmit them to the rest of their human community.

One of the oldest of the ancient Greek shrines, the one at Delphi (said to be the omphalos or navel of the world), was presided over by the Pythia or priestess who was inspired to utter prophesies which were usually hard to interpret, the avant-garde art of antiquity. In some sense, she was said to be married to the god Apollo, who supposedly inspired her via the fresh air of the mountains, or the water of the sacred spring at the site.



I spent my formative years (ages 4 to 16) in southern Idaho, a state that is completely on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, which form the state’s eastern border. From age 9 to the summer I turned 16 and moved to Canada with my family, I lived in a house three miles outside the nearest town, where I could see mountains like this from all the front windows of our house. I liked to write stories while sitting on our second-floor balcony, looking across a valley to Chinx Peak, which looked somewhat like the rugged mountain in the picture.

It was a three-mile walk from our house to the town of Pocatello (said to be a corruption of “Pork and Tallow,” a name given to a local native chief by 19th-century traders.) Halfway to town, there was an artesian well where fresh, clear water constantly bubbled out of a hole in the earth. When I got there, I always cupped my hands and scooped up enough to drink. That was my earliest idea of a sacred well.

From age 16 on, I have lived in a part of North America that is famously flat, but I still sometimes dream of mountains and fresh water. I don’t yearn for a strenuous hike or a climb, just the pleasure of a scenic view.

Forests are equally inspiring, though I’ve never lived in or near one. I have visited the boreal forest of northern Saskatchewan, and the last time I was there, I loved writing in pencil in a cabin. If the mosquitoes aren’t unbearable (and I am marinated in Deep Woods Off), and it’s not raining, I like to write outdoors.

I love writing in my office at the university, where I transferred most of the books from my home library. (Sorry I didn’t take a photo of it to show here.) There I have a floor-to-ceiling window to the outside world, which shows a concrete walkway connecting buildings, and several trees. Unfortunately, I usually have too much actual work to do in my office: mark student essays, find handouts to be photocopied, and counsel students, including strays who ask for directions. Writing for my own pleasure tends to come last.

I also like to write in the “library” on the second floor of my house, but when I’m here, my spouse is usually home too, and if I leave her alone for hours with her laptop in the front room downstairs, our eventual meeting isn’t sweet. When I see her again, she usually makes sarcastic remarks about our separate lives. Besides, the “library” window shows the side wall and part of the roof of our neighbour’s house. It’s not inspiring at all.

The outdoors seems freeing because it seems completely unconnected to the publishing biz or the larger economy. When I feel surrounded by nature, I don’t have to ask myself whether my idea for a story fits any current trend.

Here is the beginning (backstory) of my unpublished gothic story, “The Water-Harp,” about a little girl who is inspired by her natural surroundings. Eventually, she is put to work in the laundry run by the local convent, and there she is “discovered” by the young lord of the manor, who thinks she would be an amusing plaything. He learns the hard way that he can no more control her than he could single-handedly divert the local river:

The Sisters of Mercy named the baby Dorcas as soon as they had fetched her in from the doorstep, where she had been left like a gift, wrapped in a clean blanket and tucked into a wicker basket. Sister Ursula said that Dorcas was a good name for a willing servant, and all the other sisters agreed that it was perfectly suitable.

As the baby grew to be a child, and then a young girl, all the sisters remarked that she loved cleanliness, and did her chores willingly enough when these involved scrubbing away dirt, and turning disarray into order. She followed instructions to the best of her ability, and no one could call her disobedient. Yet Dorcas spent as much time outdoors as she was allowed, and there was something about her that made her seem out of place in the orphanage, and unfit for the social station for which she seemed destined.

As a five-year-old will-o-the-wisp, she once led Sister Ursula on a merry chase to the bank of the river, the child’s favorite place to explore. Dorcas had unplaited her raven hair, and it streamed behind her like a banner in the wind. To make things worse, she wore no shoes.

“Dorcas ! What a ragamuffin you are!” called the sister, gasping for breath as she reached for the child. “’Tis time for your bath.”

“I can wash myself in the water,” laughed the sprite, wiping her muddy hands on her dress, “and when I’m clean enough, I can visit the mermaids that live down there.” She pointed at the murky water that rippled over unseen stones.
“What nonsense,” declared the nun, but her tone was gentle. “You mustn’t believe Sister Margaret’s tales. God has created a world of marvels, but He would never make a woman with the tail of a fish.”

The child looked troubled. “Perhaps that’s why they don’t want you to see them,” she explained. “I’m sure they think you have no manners.” The child put her tiny hand so trustingly in the calloused palm of Sister Ursula that the nun was momentarily inclined to forgive her.

Or perhaps the good woman saw a flash of her old Adversary in the dark eyes of the little girl, and did not want to confront him then. “Where are your shoes and stockings?” she demanded.

“Here,” said Dorcas, showing them, “but I can’t put them on my dirty feet. I went in wading.” Sister Ursula, with a strength developed by years of domestic labor, picked up her charge and carried her back to the orphanage where Dorcas could be made presentable for the company of the other orphans and their caregivers. And if the patient nun felt a pang of regret that she had never had children of her own while she had the chance, she never said so to anyone.

And so Dorcas was raised more indulgently than many children with two parents alive, although she knew nothing of worldly luxury. She introduced several of the other orphans to the river and the woods, with their music of rippling water and rustling leaves. And as Dorcas’ young friends saw with delight the flash of a fin, the flicker of a furry tail or sunlight on feathers, they felt as though they too belonged in the world.

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