Deus ex Machina
It's been quite the winter. Feast or famine. The climate change forecasters told us it would be like this. Coincidence, I'm sure.
In this newsletter, I want to explore survival, the power of the mind, and the Hand of God. The two pieces below may have more in common than we know.
~
Deus Ex Machina
I must have been reading Shakespeare when I first came across the term Deus Ex Machina. Loosely translated from the Latin, it means God Out of the Machine. It refers to a plot twist at the end of a play where the hero is saved against impossible odds. I pictured a backstage helper with a pulley and winch lowering a God out from above to provide deliverance.
Not long ago, a friend fell through the ice on the Great Salt Lake while attempting to rescue her dog. Every attempt to get out of the 38 degree water onto the thin ice resulted in failure. I pictured steel double-hulled polar ocean vessels when she said, "I felt like I was nothing but an icebreaker." It was almost dark.
Just when she thought it was over, she heard the whirr of a motorized paraglider. The pilot, wearing insulated and waterproof foul-weather gear, landed nearby, dropped into the water and pushed her and the dog out onto the ice whereby my friend and her dog - on all fours - managed to get ashore. Darkness by this time was complete and the man disappeared back into the box from whence he'd come.
But back to Shakespeare. You'll recall this his plays were either comedies or tragedies. With our outings in the mountains, my great hope is that we won't require a backstage handyman with pulleys and a winch to come save the day....and that our outings will be fun(ny) and not tragic.
~
~
~
I Am the Storm
Fate whispers to the warrior, You cannot withstand the storm.
The warrior whispers back, I am the storm.
A friend of mine was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer last fall. Normally, this is a death sentence. Normally.
He and I skiied together recently in Broads Fork of Big Cottonwood Canyon. "I won't let any impurities into my system. This includes ideas, thoughts." As an avalanche forecaster, I've often said that If the game is rigged, then choose not to play. Or play a different game. Might this apply to our physical and mental health?
Perception, memory, cultural constructs - maybe all these are malleable. Some things are not. My friend is one of the best snow people I know and he continues to ski nearly every day. It's what he does. Telling him not to ski might be like telling the sun not to set in the West.
