tornado watch

We don't have tornadoes here. But on Wednesday afternoon a weather alert streamed across the bottom of the TV screen, saying that there was a tornado watch for a large part of New Mexico, including Taos County. I wasn't really worried, but it did get my attention. Nothing much happened, and as it turned out, I was outside filling a camping jug with water at the same time the worst of the storm was right overhead. Black clouds, wind, fat raindrops, and a few pellets of hail. Nothing newsworthy, although Chief Meteorologist Joe Diaz made it sound like someone was about to drop a house on me. A few minutes later, Rick and I watched a nice sunset from the patio...



Of course I'm always influenced by what's going on around me, so while I watched the scary weather reports all afternoon, I gradually found myself making Tornado Beads. I hope nobody finds this insensitive. I certainly don't mean to make light of the devastation the weather has been causing all over the world. Instead, I think it's part of my job to take fear and make it into beauty. That's where these beads came from...



And now that the storm has passed, I have to wonder if the prediction was actually for a more psychic sort of personal tornado. The last couple of days have been entirely chaotic here, at least for me. I have to remind myself that everything is temporary. Everything. And that according to the I Ching, "out of chaos, great dreams are born". So I'm holding on as tight as I can, and letting go at the same time. Anything can happen, and it's sure not up to me. Best to try to enjoy the ride.