MUD SLIDE

Spring is late this year. The daffodils are in bloom, but buds on the aspen, maple and other trees are still searching for warmth and sunshine. We did have a few days of brilliant sunshine and with the sunshine there occurred a horrific mud slide up the Snake River Canyon.

14 years ago we suffered a terrible mud slide in the canyon up near Dog Lake. It nearly put me out of business. It became a political nightmare.

Two geologists that were working on the slide stayed with us at the Nordic Inn. I learned many things from them. Before the spring run off had ever began high above where the slide erupted was an under ground lake inside the mountain. The lake was fed water from another open lake very high in the mountains.

When the spring melting of snow began the open lake could not hold all the water from the winter snow and it filled the hidden lake. The under ground lake erupted and began what is known in mother nature as a BRAND NEW RIVER!
If there had not been any humans in the area the mud slide would have opened a new artery into the mighty Snake River and branched off into many other streams and over many years there would be many new rivers, creeks, lakes. The creative process seemed endless over hundreds of years creating new water ways...

Well, this current mud slide is many times greater than the slide 14 years ago. I walked up the canyon this afternoon. The river is raging... very muddy with lots of run off water carrying trees, huge boulders and natural debris down the river at a fast tempo.
Nice to walk without any traffic... only the sounds of nature.

Nature rules. We must accept the fact. The natural disasters the past year have been shocking. But are they really? We forget we are very much a part of this planet, the cycles of nature and it's many blessing of magic and wellness.

I shall never forget what a little Japanese lady said to me in Queenstown soon after the earthquake in Japan. She would come to St Peter's daily to hear me play Chopin. After the horrible earthquake I asked her if she had lost family or friends in the disaster. She smiled, paced her words very evenly and said: "Young man, you must always enjoy the sound of birdsong, the white clouds against a blue sky and most of all hold some kind of secret peace inside your heart..." Having been to Japan a few times over the years as well as all of South East Asia I sensed her stoic and most amazing reply. Emotions are to be felt INSIDE not OUTSIDE. (I have one hell of a time with that concept! I seem to scream, cry, dramatize beyond imagination)

I reflect where I was two years ago. Full of cancer, E coli, besides too many physical problems to imagine at the present moment.

I will watch the sun set over the western mountains and silently one by one within the infinite meadows of heaven watch the lovly stars, the "forget-me-not's of the angels....... after all our bodies are made of dust? MUD! our spirits are made of light!