Yesterday, I had a foray out into the horrors of a suburban retail wasteland...store after store after car dealership after motel after restaurant...you know the scene. I was not driving, and, having driven so little over the last half-a-dozen years, I'm not sure I could have managed it. Nothing in the experience made me wish to. Yes, the intensity of the development has changed in 50 years, but I remember taking the school bus from Schenectady to Albany Academy for Girls back then, already being turned off by the growing "strips" on both Albany-Schenectady Rd. and Troy Rd. Different signage, different building designs (although some holdout buildings from the 1950's and 60's remain), but same concept. "Come in. Spend your money. Visit our establishment, not the one next door." I didn't resonate with retail back then, and I still don't. But in those days, the biggest consideration may have been that I didn't find these strips "beautiful" -- I hadn't even (consciously) begun to walk down the road to the Goddess.
Driving around yesterday, I was aware that the landscape of western Florida is probably not too dissimilar to what was before my eyes, and I had that curious feeling of seeing the picture as it would be post-hurricane, or tornado, or earthquake. It's not active "wishing to see destruction", but simply, seeing these human constructs as not a product of love -- for people, wildlife, or the environment. So much building and construction has been done to pursue values that probably wouldn't exist in a Goddess-centered community. If I sometimes seem detached from the human element of what is happening, I'm really not. I feel the pain of human lives being totally upended -- but I also feel it before the storm, gazing out at intact malls and parking lots and medical centers that seem soul-destroying. The upending happens as soon as we place our focus on anything other than love, and our trust in anything fleeting.
There are so many things that will change in the wake of these storms...one I cannot help but wonder about is the concept of private property. What happens when, say, you "own" an acre of land, and it is washed away in a storm? I mean, if it literally no longer exists?
Last night I watched some hurricane coverage on television, and was awed anew by that phenomenon of the calm in the eye of the storm (yes, I was thankful for those split-screen shots!) In an interesting coincidence, a brief but violent storm came up locally, and sheets of horizontal rain were wailing at the front windows. It made the coverage very real.
