Although it is May, not November, I've had this on my mind to write for a while. I wanted to talk a little about weather phenomena and one of my favorite songs.
I spent most of my childhood on the Great Lakes. Mostly in Southeastern Michigan, but we visited all the Lakes at one time or another.
I have always had this idea that the Great Lakes like their human inhabitants. The cities on their shores inspire fierce loyalty in their people. Ask any true Detroiter or Chicagoan about their city, even in these days of urban collapse and decay, and you'll hear stories of beauty and renewal.
If you have never been to the Lakes, you have to remember that they are not really lakes. They are freshwater inland seas. In other words, they are huge. When cousins from the UK used to visit, they were always waiting for the tide to come in or go out. They couldn't wrap their heads around a lake that one couldn't see the other side of.
Years ago, there was an effort by Vermont to include Lake Champlain into the Great Lakes system. Sorry, Vermont. I love you, and Lake Champlain is a pretty darn good lake, but the Great Lakes are things unto themselves.
The Great Lakes are big enough to form their own weather systems. The most common one is "lake effect snow", familiar to anyone who lives to the east of one of the Lakes.
The other common weather phenomenon is both more sinister and more romantic sounding; The November Witch, as made famous by the song "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot.
If you don't remember the Gordon Lightfoot song, here is an awesome cover that includes the radio chatter from that night. Here is the transcription of the radio transmissions that can be heard in the recording.
I find radio recordings, such as these, especially moving tributes. They seem to open the doors between the worlds, like nothing else does. This particular cover makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
The Witch is not something Lightfoot made up, but the name of a particular type of November gale. She's been known to be deadly since we've had records of sailing on the Lakes.
Weather is a mindless force and the analytic part of our brain understands it that way. On another level, however, our intuition forces us to deal with these mindless forces as if they had intelligence. Apparently, it must work well for our species, because we have been able to live in every climate on the planet--never mind that we are a tropical species.
So, we feel the weather as a living thing. It's not even spiritual, but visceral. Otherwise, why would we give hurricanes names? Why do we call a November gale "The Witch"?
As I said, I have always felt that the Lakes are quite content to have people living on their shores. They have always been very generous. So much of this country's wealth in the 20th Century was concentrated right there. I know that now, it's considered "flyover country", but consider that, from about 1950 to about 1975 that was where our wealth was. Those same Lakes supply water to millions of people, and continue to be a major waterway for trade.
There's this idea that sailors are superstitious. The ones I have known were not. Mostly they were just very knowledgable about their craft. In the absence NOAA and radar (and even with them) sailors have to read the weather and water. Their lives depend on the water. They love it and they fear it.
Love and fear are perhaps the best description the Animist's attitude for approaching the natural world. Not panic or phobic fear, but that sharp little spike of adrenaline that keeps you awake and alert. The fear that prevents a bad case of stupid.
Love it.
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