I arrived in New Orleans Louisiana (NOLA) on Tuesday not knowing a hurricane was also heading here. Maybe it was because it was the seventh hurricane of this year and people were tired of thinking about hurricanes. I kept hearing the words ‘hurricane fatigue’ after arriving. That Tuesday evening the bird sanctuary park closed early due to the pending storm. Wednesday morning the skies were cloudy and dark clouds started in. I was visiting another park and we were invited to leave: the loudspeakers blared ‘Go home’. Businesses closed early that day, readying for Hurricane Zeta. Then came the storm Wednesday. At first 50-60 mph winds…then increasing and every 60 seconds or so there was the ‘roadrunner’ wind that seemed to come quick and leave as quickly. I think these were the 90-100 mph winds. And then it all passed. Surveying the damage to my mother’s house that night we were lucky, gutters, a few pieces of siding, a wire down, a small leak in the roof. Power out in the entire area and across Louisiana in areas that were battered by the wind. The neighbors had a large tree fall on their house. The following day as I drove around the area the damage was great: trees down, wires and electrical poles down, roads closed, all traffic lights out, and businesses closed.

I felt sad for NOLA when seeing the businesses closed. In the midst of an economic downturn another 4 -6 days of business closure was not helping the already depressed economy.

This ‘storm fatigue’ of the people of Louisiana is the same fatigue that we’re all experiencing collectively right now in the US. We are fatigued. The already uneven US economy attacked by a pandemic that disproportionately affected the already marginalized and under-resourced populations of low income and Black and brown folks. The vicious lies propagated by the highest ‘leadership’ of the country resulting in greater lost of lives and trust in our fellow human beings. This energy of separation have watered the seeds of connection as well the seeds of separation in some resulting in acts we can’t recognize as something of us. For many there is great fatigue and forgetting of our innate goodness and love.

And yet, the day after the hurricane, the skies were blue, the birds were soaring, the sun was shining and the temperature was cool. The sea gulls are sturdy birds and I watched them circle around wondering if they ever get fatigued. They probably do and also keep moving.

The clean up after Zeta will take time. Five days out many of the traffic lights are functioning again and some of the businesses have re-opened. People were out fishing and crabbing by Saturday!

And so will the clean up after the election take some time. It will take time for us to trust each other again. We’ve been hurt by a government that showed us exactly what they thought of us who are not white, not rich, not ‘them’. We’ve been hurt by the wealthy who have been aided by government and who aids government to continue its exploitation of our humanity for their continued wealth mongering. And our respect of mother earth…we must learn. Still it is the trust in our own humanity, to raise up in us what is just and what is good. And from this awakening we can recollect our hearts to engage outward toward a collective recovery.

The storms are great and yet the sun does rise and the moon beams each day and night, somewhere. And we are again nurtured by their light as we step forward knowing we are already soaring in our individual and collective recovery. And we celebrate the joy as we remember the big and little things that are always there for us, in the midst of the storm and the recovery.