North Carolina has been in a terrible drought. Not news to any of you who know me because it's been a constant in my conversation. I've been wailing and worrying, conserving, and day-dreaming all sorts of ways to use the water around me with more economy, with more effect.
The state of NC gradually began to establish and enforce water restrictions late last summer. At first only (meaningless) personal use for car washing and grass watering were restricted. However, car wash businesses, golf courses, and the fountains at shopping malls were excluded from the rule. And the resovoirs kept going down. Then the Governor began to make commercials about water use and how it was "up to you" to conserve. The Greensboro city council issued a statement in the local paper that we should all pray for rain anad listed churches that were having prayer meetings. City Councils began meeting furiously tring to decide what to do. Amazingly, these meetings were all about how to get more water, where to get more water to maintain the status quo.
In August, everyone started to notice that green-beings were dying, lots and lots of them. Then, the first little town in southwestern NC ran out of water, then another. Our local NPR began running stories revealing how people were coping. There was an interview with the mayor of one of these small towns explaining how the city would have to levy new taxes so water could be purchased and shipped in. He told us the fire station was going to be used as the distribution center. I saw articles on the web about a shoot-out at the Georgia/Tennessee border over the closing of a dam on a small river.
Locally, we got some rain in September and October so many of the restrictions were softened. A bit more rain in Decmember and January brought the lifting of some restrictions, but the resovoirs kept going down. Since mid-February there has been more rain, sometimes for 2 or 3 days in a row. This week it has rained steadily since Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday, on the news, there were photos of a local resovoir; full of water. In a live interview, spread with the smiling faces of the Mayor and city coucil members, it was announced that restrictions were lifted entirely. I'm not sure the photos were recent, the resoviors that serve the biggest urban concentrations in the state are still at only 40 to 60 days supply today. NC is still officially short 33 inches of rain.
What I really need to talk about is how fucking shocked I am with my own reactions to the drought! I'm wrapped tight in paradox. Part of me is scared to death, part of me just wants my 10-minute showers back, part of me is spouting all sorts of righteous doom and gloom while I conserve every drop! Part of me is giving my already overgrown denial mechanism free reign: in my head can't accept this situation; for Gods sake, I have a swimming pool! Since it began raining this week, I caught myself thinking, oh, it's raining! I think I'll flush all the toilets, let the water run when I wash my face, AND I'll wash my expensive underwear in the washing machine! I even enjoyed one luscious moment of wasting water, sneaking like a really bad girl. <laughing>
I do understand my reactions, I have lived much of life in a consumer culture, I've often had more than I needed of everything. It's amusing today, that I also call myself a witch and so believe that I have a special relationship with all the elements! I have embraced them in a magical circle, I have adored them in thier abundant presence in my life. But now I feel abandoned by one of those elements. I feel helpless, I don't like it.
So, being a witch, I called a water goddess council; Yemaya, Chalchiuhtlcue, Anahita, Verbeia and the biggest water-power chic of all, Tsovinar, to beg for help. I built altars for all of them in hope they would send rain so I won't feel abandoned and helpless. (I did not pray: Beloved Goddesses, teach to accept something that has never been part of my reality; lack of something necessary-to-life)
My counsel of Water Power has indeed sent rain. But, also because I believe they love me, they have sent night-dreams painted in the colors of sadness, full of memoiries (not all mine) of a time when many babies died because I could not give them water. They sent me night-dreams laced with fearful prophsies of a future in witch water has become a valuable commodity in the western free-market sense of the word. A future when we pay for water, when water is stolen, when violence is committed to get water or keep water. A future when greenbabies and humanbabies die for lack of water.
Last night's dream was like a fast-forward movie of dry-death, green-earth, wind and rain followed by a long swoop over a desert with an oasis. Am I being reminded of natural cycles? Am I being reminded that Mother Earth is more powerful than I am, then ALL of us, and that She will, like all good mothers, provide for her children, even when her children make really shitty choices? Is She able to teach me to use my shitty choices as lessons that will serve me forever and ever?
Or am I just dream-surfing in some elaborate scared-little-girl head-trip so I'll feel safe again?