Tempests Over San Francisco
“The tumult of raging nature that I watch with fascination incongruously stirs a memory of a Greek song I learned as a child where Thunder is a giant woman whose bracelets rumble as she dances. “Tουμπου, τουμπου, τουμπου, τοομ, θα βραχιόλια της Βροντούμ.” (Loosely translated, “Thump, thump, thump, clash Thunder’s bracelets.”) I picture her, feet pounding the earth, reveling in the chaos. The song was probably meant to soothe a child’s fear of a terrifying force of nature, not evoke such an alarming image. In my case, it succeeded. I always loved storms, but not storms of this magnitude. Not storms that kill. Ours have.”—Helen Noakes
Waking Point
By Helen Noakes
SAN FRANCISCO California—(Weekly Hubris)—1 February 2023—Our days are darkened by angry skies. There is a river in the great grey clouds that occlude the sun. And when they release its full devastating deluge on our parched and burned soil, our streets become waterways that sweep away refuse and lives, alike.
Terrifying winds so powerful they rip trees, young and ancient, out by their roots.
Lightning strikes very close, its shattering zing leaving a trace of ozone.
Thunder rattles my windows so wildly I think I feel the house shake.
Although alarmed, I stand in awe, gazing at the heaving trees, the white caps crashing on the grey ocean beyond, and understand more fully why our ancient ancestors deified the forces of nature. How else could one describe this tempest but “the wrath of God”?
The tumult of raging nature that I watch with fascination incongruously stirs a memory of a Greek song I learned as a child where Thunder is a giant woman whose bracelets rumble as she dances. “Tουμπου, τουμπου, τουμπου, τοομ, θα βραχιόλια της Βροντούμ.” (Loosely translated, “Thump, thump, thump, clash Thunder’s bracelets.”)
I picture her, feet pounding the earth, reveling in the chaos. The song was probably meant to soothe a child’s fear of a terrifying force of nature, not evoke such an alarming image. In my case, it succeeded. I always loved storms, but not storms of this magnitude. Not storms that kill.
Ours have.
How many of these devastating events have we had in our country alone? And while I know that our planet has endured huge natural upheavals—every culture has a flood story as epical as Noah’s—the phenomenon in our times is different. We know what’s happening to our planet, and no amount of denial can change the facts.
I contemplate this as I gaze out at my rain-soaked garden and, sorrowfully wonder whether there is any hope for our world. Just then, my little hummingbird comes to the feeder I’ve hung in the camellia, partakes, and soars.
Helen Noakes
Helen Noakes is a playwright, novelist, writer, art historian, linguist, and Traditional Reiki Master, who was brought up in and derives richness from several of the world’s great traditions and philosophies. She believes that writing should engage and entertain, but also inform and inspire. She also believes that because the human race expresses itself in words, it is words, in the end, that will show us how very similar we are and how foolish it is to think otherwise. (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)