Coming Back

Oh, my. I’m still recovering from my visit to New Orleans with my girlfriend, my son and his best friend. I went to priestess my sister’s wedding. It was one of those long weekends which seem to stretch for weeks. We left late on a Thursday, coming back on Monday. How could so much have happened?

My girlfriend was able to blog about it right away, but I’m still processing it. There’s so much to say, and no words seem really right to express it. I loved New Orleans the first time I laid eyes upon her. It was on that trip that I understood how the elements are embodied in our great cities. The four directions and their elemental correspondences play out in our nation’s landscape and our cities serve as great Guardians of the Directions. New York in the east has the power of intellect, with Air holding reign there. Chicago, that mighty meatpacking city in the north, holds the power of Earth. On the west coast, Water rules the city of dreamers that is San Francisco. And in the south, in New Orleans, sex and death are always dancing a hot tango, paying tribute to Fire’s power.

With Hurricane Katrina, I worried that the spark of this great city might be forever dampened. Returning, I was immediately struck by all the signs on restaurants, hotels, and other business’s which stated “WE’RE BACK!” I live in a city that came back too, that rose from similar devastation. New Orleans, city of Fire, was devastated by Water, as a result of levees breaking in the great hurricane. San Francisco, city of Water, was ruined by the Fire as result of the great earthquake of 1906. Both cities are psychic ports, places that people feel compelled to come back to, places that demand to be rebuilt and populated.

We chocked a lot into the few days we were there, including a harrowing ride thru the lower 9^th Ward. Seeing the X's painted on the houses reminded me of all the X’s I had seen the last time I was in New Orleans. These were the X’s scratched and painted on Marie Leveau’s tomb, a Vodoun sign of respect for this great priestess. The X’s that now predominate in New Orleans are the X’s done by rescue workers on the ruined homes. In the upper middle quadrant of the X is the date the house was gotten to, most which happened a good week or two after the storm hit. In the bottom section of the X there is a number. This is the number of dead who were found. Too many X’s remain on houses that are not rebuilt. And way too many have numbers in that lower quadrant.

Seeing what we saw, including the poverty that has existed well before Katrina, made this ride difficult, but one I’m glad my son, his friend, and cousins bore witness to. My cousin having a full blown seizure in the midst of it made the ride truly surreal. “Don’t stop here!”, one of the kids implored, and luckily the seizure stopped and we drove on. Don’t stop here. Isn’t that the incantation so many of us utter when storms approach or we are journeying thru dangerous territory?

My sister and her new husband are people who have had storms blow apart their lives, who have had death stop at their door and take people they loved. The epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was practically underneath her house in the Santa Cruz mountains. It took her months to rebuild. Like New Orleans, she and her groom come back from disaster and heartbreak full of lust for life, ready to party into the night and wake the next day laughing about it. Officiating at their wedding was some of the best magic I’ve done in years. Minutes before the wedding started, the manager of the hotel told me about her own wedding. It was the night before Katrina hit, when she was focused on nothing but the ceremony and irritated by the photographer and caterers wanting it to end early so they could evacuate. As I officiated, I saw her beaming from the back of the courtyard, her tears being testimony to love’s ability to keep us afloat in dark waters.

I’m back now in my city of dreams, one that the seismologists predict will see another great quake in the next decades to come. This weekend there were house parties and concerts all over the globe to raise awareness about climate change. I know there will be many more catastrophes and disasters of all types in this lifetime, some I may personally experience, and one I may even die in. There will be unkindness, selfishness, and even cruelty. And yet, there also will be resilience, and people reaching a hand out to help. How can we not marvel on how great cities and regular people come back, again and again and again?