Shadow Puppet Storyteller

What Weighs You Down?

I continue to think on the parallels that are being drawn between the American people's response to the September 11th terrorist attacks and the hurricane devestation of New Orleans. Here I live, in earthquake capital of the U.S. (the Big One is now the one training senario all the disaster response professionals DO NOT want to see befall us at this time). The global shock of December 2004's Tsunami, hit chords in me too; the important thing to note - I felt the spiritual "ripple effect."

For the first time, I was consciously aware of the anguish half a world away. I was overwhelmed by the scope, but felt a human connection to the suffering. I had an actual internal sensation of endless treading of water during a deep meditation. I tried to write a poem, but it was like being too exhausted to speak those voices. "Undertow" is still incomplete.

And for the displaced people of New Orleans and its surroundings, I want to know if their family histories can continue in much more than oral tradition for a time. The records and individual family albums, yes, even the above ground cemetaries New Orleans is home to, what disposition are they in? Do any have family histories old enough in the region to have lost a family bible to the flood waters. Some have a tradition of noting the marriages, births and deaths in a bible for generations. I think of the things you can carry out, and the things you can't. What has value or is made valueless after the submerging. Even your little diary, or box of keepsakes, annual signed by friends decades in the past, photo albums - all are forever changed after a flood.

Is it worth loading your body down? The memory doesn't always stay sharp. What stories will remain true to history when all the proof has been submerged and then slowly pumped away?

Follow Walkinbird{/b}
When the final light is extinguished –
Recognize the next available Source in the darkness