It's not every day you live through a Superstorm. And even though we didn't get the flooding that the coastal areas received, it doesn't mean we didn't get hammered hard by Sandy. Apparently, we were one of the hardest hit outside the Shore.
Interesting to note that the Superstorm was given an androgynous name. I keep picturing it as a Rebis-Kraken hybrid, tear-assing across Jersey looking for the shit- and that it all was foreshadowed by a major solar blowup just a week before.
Having lived now through Irene, Sandy and the Halloween blizzard (by far the most terrifying for me personally, listening hopelessly as trees and branches exploded like fireworks), I can say with total confidence that we're completely at Mother Nature's mercy.
More accurately, it feels to me as if Mother Earth and Father Sun are going through a rough patch in their relationship, and as usual the kids take the brunt of it. All of which is to say that there were superstorms long before carbon credits, so I wouldn't pull the hairshirt out quite yet. Climate change is here, but it's simply making an encore appearance.
Some might say a political agenda obscures the role of solar activity in climate change, but I say it's just as much a function of hubris- if we're causing it, it means we are the masters of our dominion and we can stop it. Good luck with that. I've said all along this planet is an extremely dangerous place- maybe some people are starting to realize that now.
Living with chronic pain gives you a different POV on human omnipotence- rather, pretensions thereto. The superstorm kicked my ass up and down the street - we painsters live at the mercy of the barometer- and just to rub salt in my trigger points, Athena (the newly dubbed Nor'easter) came along added a few more days of sheer bloody hell to my life. 2012 has been a particularly rough patch of a year, though I'm starting to wonder if Jersey's insane-ass climate will force me out of the state for good.
We lost power for more than a week, and other than it being cold as balls at night, I didn't exactly miss it. I got a strange adrenaline rush from the superstorm- it was one of the most surreal events of my life- that lasted most of the week until it crashed hard with Athena. The recovery was much longer than the rush.
Seeing your landscape transformed will do that- the destruction just within walking distance of my house was like nothing I'd see outside of a particularly pessimistic 70s drive-in movie. I must add that we saw ball lightning dancing the street during the storm, just because this neighborhood isn't weird enough already.
We've been sold a wired future, but what happens when the wires are ripped from their settings every six months or so? We've already had three major blackout events in less than 18 months here, and when the power goes out our entire economy goes with it. That's an untenable situation. But the reality is that putting wires underground is extremely expensive. Rock, meet Hard Place.
Kevin Kelly never warned me of this eventuality back in 1993. He didn't warn me about fistfights over gasoline, empty shelves - at Walmart, at all places, and the entire local economy stopping in its tracks for more than a week as transmitters littered the streets like roadkill.
Of course, I believe in signals from transmitters as yet unknown and I can't help but think of the timing here. I put The Secret Sun on hiatus the Thursday before Sandy, having no clue what was coming until my doctor told me the next day I should take special care because a Nor'easter was on the way. He said nothing about a superstorm.
So I put The Sun on hold in order to concentrate on other pressing matters, one of which was getting my drawing chops back in shape. Actually, getting my chops in the best shape of their life. I was distraught because as I mentioned on The Sun, I simply can't sit at a table and draw- it puts too much pressure on my trigger points.
But an old lapboard with a cushioned underside showed up while we were moving stuff around (you gotta do something when the juice is off) and I discovered it was quite ergonomical to use in bed or on a couch. I also found a file of old sketches that I had been working on in hopes of developing a new style from a few years back. So with fuckall else to do I spent a lot of time- mostly at night- with a reading light, a lapboard, some recycled paper and a bunch of markers. It was just what the doctor ordered.
Funny how that works sometimes.
Now I'm wracking my brains trying to figure out how to bring it all together. I haven't yet, but I love drawing as much as writing, if not more. So I'd better think of something, sooner rather than later.
Another reason I put The Sun on hiatus was that after five years I was running out of things to write about that I felt were truly exceptional, that really channeled The Signal. There's no shortage of wannabes, and no shortage of pseudo-occult media, but I've been there and done all that a long time ago.
So until the Mystery Hour is up and running, this will be our new interface. I've repurposed this blog to be an outlet for the endless shitstorm inside my head, as well as to do more actual writing as opposed to writing at the end of endless hours of research. I'll be writing about things I think about but felt fell outside The Sun's mandate, something I was diligent in following. Politics, culture, science/tech, and more secular matters like that, as opposed to mystical explorations.
Ironically, I wrapped up Secret Sun v.1.7 feeling more confident in my theories and theses than ever. But at the same time I really wanted to return to some of the deep-sea diving I was doing into the Mysteries before I was worried about having to explain everything to an audience.
I was keenly aware that every piece I wrote was someone's first Secret Sun experience, and that anchored me in a way I feel is counterproductive at this point in my journey. I want to return to exploring these topics on my own and hopefully I'll be better able to communicate them in the future.
At the same time, I also plan to do some Secret Sun for Beginners posts. I'm often told the blog archives are too huge and intimidating so I thought it was a good idea to break in newbies- I just have to figure out how best to do that. I haven't yet but I will.
I can't make any promises as to posting frequency- I'm going to write when I have something to say. Just keep your eyes peeled and I promise to post notifications on the Facebook page as well.
Until next time.
