Waiting for the Sun

Time stands still, Winter Solstice 2015, County M, near Blue River, WI

"Color is the deeds & the suffering of light." Afternoon of the shortest day, Winter Solstice 2015

"Haven't I seen you round here before?" Gone the way of the lead sled, Hgwy 61, WI

Watch the skys, Central House Hotel December 2015.

Time waits for none

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Ellenboro I

Farm pasture near Ellenboro WI, peaceful, alive, life-giving.

In posting this image I am also thinking of a blog I found yesterday, its content the antithesis of this peaceful, healthy landscape which floods me with gratitude. In April, 1986 I was a 25 year old college grad from New Jersey. Seven years earlier in 1979 we had experienced the scare of a lifetime when the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania- about 80 miles north of us–  sustained a partial core meltdown that could have irradiated the Delaware River Valley and changed life for many of us forever. Thankfully, the reactor vessel was not breached, and the radiation remained caged. We were lucky.

People living in the Ukraine region of the USSR were not so fortunate in 1986 when a safety test run amok caused reactor #4 at Chernobyl to explode with enough force to blow the fuel containment lid off of its radioactive core, releasing mass quantities of deadly Uranium and Plutonium isotopes. People not understanding the threat stood on rooftops awed by the iridescent plumes shooting up from the reactor. The radioactive half life of plutonium-239 is 24,000 years. Chernobyl, Priapet and other cities and towns within a vast area of Russian farmlands were rendered “hot zones, “uninhabitable for generations, their residents exiled. The story is heart-wrenching, unthinkable, unforgivable and should have served as warning enough to end-stop the fantasy of clean nuclear power.  The narrative, photos and testimony at Elena Filatova’s decade old blog elenafilatova.com bears witness to the consequences of misplaced faith in the omnipotence  of technology when the stakes are highest.

Fast forward 20 years to Fukushima, Japan, 2011: by some accounts, because its 3 damaged reactors remain active and unstable, the Daiichi plant potentially presents a far greater threat than Chernobyl’s burned-out sarcophagus. Although  faded from headlines and public opinion in the west, Fukushima’s story is still unfolding.  Lesson not learned.

The tendency has been to forget about these painful events because they sear our hearts and conscience, or seem surreal, far removed in space and time;  or because they evoke feelings of utter powerlessness we surrender hope and rage and walk away. Numb. I urge that we do not and instead work to ensure that these events are not forgotten.  So that in bearing witness alongside those whose lives have been and continue to be decimated in Russia and Japan, we exercise our responsibility to say enough is enough, no so called progress is worth this scale of destruction across space and time. Who will ensure the integrity of Chernobyl’s sarcophagus in 2386?  There is no alternative water to drink or air to breath. There is no antidote for excessive radiation exposure or the cancers and genetic mutations it engenders, silently corrupting and killing present and future generations.  Chernobyl’s first responders had zero chance of survival. Think on these unadorned facts and visit Elena’s blog. We need 7 generations’ worth of common sense, not rocket science to cultivate our human future on this one and only planet.

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