The natural world presents moments that remind us mortal beings of our insignificance— of our tiny place in a greater world urged on by forces greater than we can imagine.
Yesterday evening, as the sun met the western horizon, a storm system loomed. Its unstoppable lurch eastward pulled our eyes upward as the volatile system brewed.
While State Route 20, a key route for Mendocino and Lake County commuters, was shut down and thrown into chaos, those west of the storm watched it take on a strange, ethereal beauty.
Photographer Eric Lee Burch was in Willits when he turned his aperture upward hoping to capture the “dynamics of color and energy that amaze” him.
He watched in awe as the storm steamrolled “over everything in its path” and each of its colors and moods was “so fleeting.”
As the sun disappeared beneath the western horizon, Burch noticed “how much more ominous it looked the darker it got.”
As Mendocino County residents, we’re well acquainted with the immense power of nature, its indiscriminate destruction, and also its oddly-alluring beauty.
Jack London wrote the following passage of the frozen Alaskan Winter and he captures the duality of awe and fear we feel when faced with what Burch described as the “yin and yang” of yesterday’s storm:
“A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of laughter more terrible than any sadness-a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.”
MendoMoments, is dedicated to showcasing the land, animals, and people that make up Mendocino County. All Mendocino County residents and visitors are invited to participate. Send photographs to matthewplafever@gmail.com including a description of what your photograph depicts, where it was taken, and any other important details.
Earlier Chapters
- MendoMoments: The Savage Surfers of the Mendocino Coast
- MendoMoments: Longing for Her ‘Happy Place’, a Visitor Returns to Mendocino
- MendoMoments: The Milky Way Takes Shape Over Point Arena
- MendoMoments: The Joy of a Child on a Winter’s Morn
- MendoMoments: The Warmth of Santa Claus Eminates from a Fort Bragg Storefront
- MendoMoments: A Darkened Sky, A Quiet Home, A Leafless Sycamore
- MendoMoments: ‘Frost and Fire’- A Covelo Sunrise on a Chilly Morn
- MendoMoments: The Pacific Transforms as Days Shorten and Shadows Grow
- MendoMoments: Sunset at Blues Beach
- MendoMoments: Savage Waves Batter the Mendocino Headlands
- MendoMoments: Fall Colors in Ukiah’s Downtown
- MendoMoments: A Sherbert Sunrise Illuminates a Blanket of Fog Above Redwood Valley
- MendoMoments: A Roosevelt Elk at Sinkyone Wilderness
- MendoMoments: A Caspar Shack with the Patina of Time
- MendoMoments: The Nearness of Autumn Comes Into Focus on the Mendocino Bluffs
- MendoMoments: The Long and Winding Philo-Greenwood Road
- MendoMoments: Surfer Rides a Wave Under the Blood Red Sun of Smoky Skies
- MendoMoments: A Gray Whale Emerges from the Pacific
- MendoMoments: A Wake of Vultures Feast on a Carcass
- MendoMoments: A Glass Beach Squirrel Gets Ornery When It Does Not Get a Snack
- MendoMoments: A Barn Owl in the Backyard
- MendoMoments: Lost in the Maze of Brooktrails
- MendoMoments: Noyo Harbor’s Baby Ospreys Emerge
- MendoMoments: Memorial Day at Russian River Cemetery
- MendoMoments: Soaking Feet in a Cool Creek
- MendoMoments: The Super Flower Blood Moon Descends Behind Duncan Peak
- MendoMoments: A Little Library in the Hamlet of Hearst
- MendoMoments: Thunderheads Gather Above the Mayacama Mountains
- MendoMoments: Lake Mendocino Through the Lens of a Newcomer
Talk of your cold! Through the parkas fold it stabbed l
Like a driven nail
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till some-
Times we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was
Sam McGee.
The Cremation Of Sam McGee
From Spell of The Yukon by Robert Service
My own 1914 copy, hard bound
My father would quote this ballad poem from memory as we all listened in awe
I put it to music after fathers death and shared it with family and they hated it.
I have not played it since