The Summer from Hell

If you think of hell as a place of eternal flame, Arizona is turning into that.  The big Wallow fire is still burning, about 75% contained.  The Monument fire down near the Mexican border is still burning.  There are two new fires along the Mogollon Rim, the Willow fire and the Wash fire.  Lordy, where is the rain??

We are in the monsoon season now, here in the Southwest, although usually it doesn't start really raining until July.  Not a drop so far.  Up here in the White Mountains we have gone from cool and windy, too hot and windy.  It is eye drying, lip chapping, skin cracking weather, with humidity often less than 15%.  And, there is just enough smoke in the air to cause your eyes to burn, like a smoggy day in Los Angeles.

In the winter I was praying for warm weather.  This afternoon, I'd be delighted if it snowed, just for an hour.  It is hot.  I know I demand a paradise climate, but even in paradise the weather is changing.  Drought in the south, fires in Florida, flooding in the upper Midwest, and I don't know what in California.

I was listening to a Mayan scholar on the radio the other night, and he was saying that the Mayan calender will end on October 28, 2011, not December 21, 2012.  He said he did expect some "challenges" around that time.  Here we've all been gearing up slowing, thinking we had over a year to prepare.  Now he says October, only four months away.  Should we be scared?

I'm not going to be.  We are all born onto this planet, and we die to go back Home.  None of us knows the day or the hour that will happen, but we don't live in fear our whole lives either.  No point in starting now.  These days demand we be alert and creative, and both are states that make us feel alive.  Challenges are good for the soul and they strengthen the mind.  Like a roller coaster ride, it is exhilarating while it lasts, and scary too.  Yeehaw!

Like the old Chinese curse/proverb says, "May you live in interesting times."  Well, let's ride the wild ride, and if it is fated to be so, slide into The Other Side grinning and laughing, saying, "That was fun!  Let's go again!"  Let's pretend we're running the rapids on the Colorado River, getting wet and sunburned, and having the time of our lives.