Heroes Not Zombies

A couple of mornings ago I woke up to this very strange light. The whole sky seemed covered with cloud but instead of grey it was this odd, orange/yellow colour. The sun was shining high above the trees but only as a pale disc. You could look directly at the sun without any difficulty. I wondered if a storm was coming, but what kind of storm?

Then once outside I saw that every surface was coated with a layer of sand….the table and chairs, the car, even the flowers in their pots.

I’d seen this before, a couple of times, since moving to live here in southwest France. This was indeed sand in the air, and lining the surfaces on the ground.

A quick check online and I saw the map of the sandstorm arising in the Sahara desert and spreading northwards over Morocco, Spain and up across western France.

How strange to experience sand in the sky and in the garden, sand which has blown all the way from the desert.

In that moment I was deeply aware of the interconnectedness of our world. How nothing in Nature respects the human artificial borders of “states” or “countries”.

We might divide the Earth up into pieces for reasons of attempted power and control but ultimately we all share this one planet, this one water cycle of oceans, rains and rivers, this one sky filled with invisible highways of fast moving air.