I almost never sleep through the night. Like most people of a certain age, I get up several times to wander around, use the bathroom, get drinks of water, pet the dog, etc.
Typically, as I thread my way through the night shadows of our peaceful house, I'm not fully awake or asleep, but rather hovering in the twilight between. My mind is paradoxically totally relaxed, yet keenly alert.
Last night, it was in just such a state that I was startled by an unbidden insight or premonition….or maybe just a crazy thought. I'm not sure which. But whatever it was, it stayed with me through the night, because when I woke up this morning, I found myself still pondering my midnight epiphany.
I suppose it was prompted in some measure by a conversation my husband and I had yesterday. As we were driving to Knoxville, he told me about a story he'd read in the New York Times. The story was about a company that is marketing million dollar survival pods in anticipation of December 21, 2012.
December 21, 2012, the Winter Solstice, is the last date noted on the ancient Mayan calendar. Hence, many people, world wide, think some kind of cataclysmic or even apocalyptic event is going to happen on that date…..perhaps the end of time.
Anyway, here is my startling and frankly unbidden midnight premonition. It has to do with December 21, 2012 and fracking.
My thought was that the caldera (an underground super volcano which last erupted 640,000 years ago) at Yellowstone in Wyoming will erupt in 2012 and the eruption will be due, in part at least, to fracking in the mid state region of the U.S.. That region is already undergoing seismic shifts which many people think are related to fracking.
Here's a link to Wikipedia's page about the Yellowstone caldera.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera) An eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano would likely be an extinction event.
Just like our old high school physics teachers told us, every action has a reaction.
The earth's reactions to fracking occur deep underground and are not always immediately visible. That doesn't mean, however, that they aren't there. Last week, there was a 4.0 earth quake in Ohio which officials believe to have been fracking related.
Just as the butterfly effect suggests that the tiny flutter of a butterfly's wings an be magnified as it reverberates through the earth's atmosphere to ultimately cause weather shifts a thousand or more miles away, how much more likely is it that deep drilling and the injection of millions of gallons of water and chemicals underground will not have a cumulative, potentially enormous effect, hundreds of miles away….like in Yellowstone?
Some people will suggest that if the gods (or God) have predestined an apocalyptic event, especially on a date certain, it does not matter what man does, so we might as well continue our violent assault on the earth, for that's what fracking is: deep drilling and the injection of millions of gallons of water and toxic chemicals into our earth is a violent assault, each well a wound.
I choose to believe, however, that what we do DOES make a difference.
What is destiny but a destination? And ultimately, we are all headed for the same destination: Death.
Since we all know our ultimate destination, isn't HOW we make the journey the only thing that REALLY matters?
Behaviors which corrupt the earth and yes, our spirits, for the sake of greed and ease are inherently the wrong way to make the journey. They do not honor God, nature or man. They are dis-spiriting. They bring empty ease and distraction, not true joy, to the present.
And my midnight premonition tells me that they may bring far worse, cataclysmic events in our common and not too distant future.
I'm not preaching. I like a warm house and convenience as much as the next person. But I don't believe that my warmth and convenience should necessarily be delivered cheaply and heedless of the consequences. Instead of giving tax credits to oil and gas corporations, why aren't we giving credits to green energy production and consumption?
December 21, 2012 is less than a year away. What will happen on that date? Probably nothing out of the ordinary.
But of course, one day, we'll all arrive at our appointed out of the ordinary day. I'd like to face mine with the serenity of knowing I made a good journey.
I don't think fracking has been a good detour for any of us.
For more blogs, music and poetry by MM, please visit www.dogwooddaughter.com
Best Wishes for 2012.
Warmly, Martha Maria