Large Fierce Mammal

Wind of Lights, Ellysiumn (Click to enlarge. Source: Deviantart)

Welcome back Goode Reader to this third Winds of Change episode where, as promised, it’s story time!

You will recall that I closed our previous gathering with the request that you, “Consider this the sound of a long, deep, indrawn breath before the blast, and meditate upon the wording of that until next time,” and today you will learn the significance of that.

My own experience and studies have so far led me to conclude that, to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the seeker’s receptiveness and ability to grasp patterns, the Other may choose to make itself known in three very obvious ways:

1. Superimposed upon or “riding with” existing wind conditions so that its presence and purpose isn’t recognized until a very specific outcome separates design from the mere vagaries of weather;
2. Ready and waiting so that, at first, it is mistaken for existing wind conditions until its purpose is realized; or
3. It arises out of stillness to deliver a message that is swift, clear, and commonly open to interpretation.

Notwithstanding how it comes upon you, the Other may choose to deliver its very personal touch in a continuum of ways ranging from slapstick to life threatening, each as clear as a big wet leaf square in the face, and as I am wont to say, that reminds me of a story … several actually, so sit back now oh windblown and weary Traveller and open your mind. Let us begin with manifestations of the first kind listed above, and look at one of those slapstick moments.

The City of Halifax is the Capital of the Province of Nova Scotia, and home to Dalhousie University which was the attraction for my being there on the occasion of the events I am about to relate. Founded in 1749, the layout of the urban business district is a legacy of the city’s military heritage, built on concentric streets of steadily increasing elevation marching upward from its famous harbour, and centered on the fortress atop Citadel Hill. The area still carries an air of the Imperial married with modernity in the form of highrise buildings that have created ideal conditions for the treacherous winds that now afflict some major downtown intersections including the one in this story. The Google Street View image below will visually support the narrative.

Captured in Summer of 2019, this view isn’t a lot different from the one you would have had looking along Barrington Street toward the intersection with Spring Garden Road (white car is turning right from Spring Garden onto Barrington) on that Autumn day back in the late 1970s. (Click image to enlarge. Source: Google Street View)

When our story begins, it was a warm and sunny Autumn day and I had just traversed the length of Spring Garden Road from the Dalhousie campus, turned left onto Barrington Street, and was about where the man in the white shirt is in the picture when I saw a woman approaching me on the sidewalk who was just passing by the transit stop the bus in the picture seems to be in front of. No bus in evidence that day though, and other than a couple of people waiting for one, there was nobody on the sidewalk but her and me. As the distance between us closed, I saw she was exceptionally pretty and mutual eye contact ensued in that way it once could without setting off alarms. About then, a breeze coming up Salter Street (off the port beam of the bus in the picture) came with a low rushing sound to stir the fallen leaves that were lying in the road and scattered on the sidewalk in a way that was unsurprising for that place and time. And then something marvelous happened.

The sound of the rustling leaves was suddenly quelled as though turned off with a switch, replaced as they settled to ground by another. A deep whoosh that started low, seemed to come from everywhere, and drew my attention from its previous focus. It was as much felt as heard and I remember all background sounds seeming to be subdued as I felt I was inside the lungs of some giant beast drawing in its breath, or a vast transparent balloon being inflated. And then with a powerful rush came a swirling wind that enveloped me as both the woman and I simultaneously noticed the arrival of a third party in the form of a solitary, huge, and brilliantly yellow Maple leaf that came sailing overhead from behind me, dipped abruptly toward the street, and then ascended to hover high above it like an Osprey preparing to stoop upon its prey. By now, both the woman and I were almost stopped no more than 20 feet apart, watching the odd display, when the leaf now suddenly plummeted from this apex to briefly arrest its descent over the sidewalk midway between its two observers and then as though attached by a taught elastic string to the end of my nose flew straight into my face and stuck there, held in place by the wind that had brought it.

The leaf was huge and wet, and I peeled it off with one hand while removing my smeared glasses with the other to the sound of rapid footsteps approaching and a giggled, “Oh my GOD! Are you all right?”

Visual obstructions removed, I found the woman standing in front of me in a combined posture of concern and embarrassment at having laughed. Tossing the leaf aside, I assured her with a laugh of my own that I was undamaged, and we spoke briefly of the oddity of it all as I wiped residual wetness from my face and cleaned my glasses. She had places to be as did I, and this not being a love story, I will end it here and move on to a day when the dark side of the Other’s humour came to the fore.

Leaping forward 20 years and 100 kilometers west of our previous tale, I was established personally and professionally in my birth town of Lunenburg. On this particular day, a tropical cyclone had made landfall knocking down trees and power lines in daylight hours for a change. It was a Sunday as I recall, and the main drag of Lincoln Street was deserted of all but me as I set out in response to a request for assistance with a fire alarm related matter at the National Sea Products fish processing plant just outside and southeast  of town.

Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and so even less prone to rapid change than it ever was, so if you imagine all human and vehicular presence gone from the 2015 Google Street View image below, you will have approximately the same view I had on the day. What I didn’t know at this very point in my drive was that something remarkable was happening.

In that picture I would direct your attention to two points of interest —

• on the RIGHT, the fenced gap between the grey building with red trim (then the Capitol Theater, now Lunenburg Opera House), and the next one further on with yellow street front and unpainted grey cinder block facing wall (then Jo’s Dive Shop, now emOcean Spa); AND
• on the LEFT, the slight indentation in the lawn above and to the left of the dark object protruding from the area surrounded by a low retaining wall — the indentation is where a very old and very large Elm Tree once stood.

Source: Google Street View (2015)

In summation then, a tropical storm descended upon my locale creating circumstances that led to me responding to a request for assistance from a client. The matter was important but not an emergency, so my departure was not immediate, and in a mental coin toss I decided to take the Lincoln Street route rather than the more direct alternative of the Back Harbour Highway that would have taken me around the town rather than through the middle of it.

Passing through the area pictured above, I had just reached the end of the block when movement caught my eye in the rear view mirror and I simultaneously heard an eruption of sounds behind me — a large tree was lying across the roadway I had just traversed, branches still whipping with the impact, and having fallen so perfectly into the gap between the Dive Shop and the Theater (see the next picture) that no serious structural damage was done to either. The wooden fence now bridging the gap replaces one made of iron pipe that was squashed to oblivion by the incident, power and phone lines torn apart by it could not be repaired before the tree had been sectioned up and removed, but of all the trees lining that street, you couldn’t have picked a better one to fall for minimum damage.

Seeing what had happened, I stopped to call it in to the dispatch center my company operated that served the role of central dispatch for all fire, police, electrical, and public works services for the town before continuing with my own mission.

The gap the tree fell into. (Source: Google Street View (2015)

Returning to the scene afterward to do some measurements and calculations, it soon became clear to me that the tree had to have been falling as I passed by it to have so narrowly missed me with its perfectly placed and timed impact. As I once wrote:

“For this to be experienced I needed to be exactly where and when I was. So simple and yet so profound.” ~ Moments of Magick

Coming as it did as culmination to a sequence of what only superficially seemed to be unconnected occurrences and choices, I have never wasted a moment on what might have been. For this was not good fortune in the sense that I was narrowly missed by the tree. It was good fortune of another sort, and the forces involved didn’t miss anything at all.

Think on these tales until next time.