How about this weather? Or - smoke gets in my eyes. And sinus's. And Lungs.

 Blessings Darlings!

Those of you in the US, since we now have the 'usual' west coast fires going as well as the smoke from the Canadian fires, how are you coping with the air?  And for those of you in the southern heat dome - how are you coping with the heat?

I was going to do a lot in the garden today.  But the air quality is so bad - in the Red Warning zone, halfway to the Purple Warning.  So I masked up to put laundry on the clothes line and water the potted plants, then retired to the indoors.  The 'haze' is visible everywhere - making the landscape hard to see.  The Blue Ridge Mountains are totally obscured, and they should be visible.  The weather service does not figure particulates (I don't know about Ozone) into their 'visibility' figure.  I'd say it's under a mile here.  Weather service says it's 5.5 miles.

Mind you, I was out in this muck all yesterday, because my job requires it.  So I spent all yesterday breathing it.  That was not fun. At least today my eyes aren't burning.

I don't know what the air quality is here in the house.  The windows were open late yesterday afternoon 'to let the cool air in', so I'm sure it got bad.  

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what 'minimal use of air conditioning' is.  It's only 87 out side, and the dew point is low.  The AC was at 80F until 5 pm, then I turned it down to 79 because it felt stuffy even with ceiling fans.  We don't have an air purifier, alas, the only air filter here is the AC (or running the HVAC on 'fan only'.) 

Now, intellectually I know that the setting on my AC isn't a big impact on the environment.  Manufacture of all the 'stuff' is, so buying less stuff is a more effective action.  But we're living in the third stage of collapse, and, fundamentally, I'm going to have to learn to live without AC in the future.  Working outside in summer heat (and smoke) will help my body adjust to dealing with temperatures (even as it damages my lungs, right.)  

And even tho' I'm FAR from the highest consumer of ice in my household, I'm still using it while feeling that it is a First World Indulgence.  And keeping my ice water in an insulated cup (bought used.  Just like almost all my clothes other than my undies, shoes, and socks.)

But I'd still wish I could sleep in mid 70 temperatures, with a dew point of under 60.

Frondly, Fern

Fire Protection

Blessings, Darlings!

Have you noticed that the Land, Sea, and Sky seem rather upset lately? In the US alone this year, we have had unusual winter cold in west Texas and New Mexico, spring floods, spring tornado sprees, summer droughts, unusual earth quakes in Louisiana and Colorado and Virginia/DC, unusually severe heat waves in lots of the country, fires in Texas, and now a couple of hurricanes causing severe flooding.

Most of the things line up well with global warming, and the fires include humans preventing smaller fires and letting available fuel for fires build up. The Earth quakes in Louisiana for sure, and maybe the one in Virginia, was directly related to fracking for petroleum/gas. In other words - most of this has roots in human actions and hubris.  

Hubris. 

Typically I'm down with pride and arrogance. I am a magic user, I hang with Mages. But I admit that I've screwed up magic and other things at times and so do the other magic users in my life. Well, most of them. But even the most arrogant are up front about magic being a hand grenade which can take out the user with shrapnel along with the intended target. Because magic is powerful. Still, none of the magic users I hang with think that the Elements are their bitches.

Apparently not all share these views. Over on FaceBook there's a group that's going to do weather magic for Texas. The two main forces in that group have written that they intend to make Tropical Storm Nate into a hurricane and move it into the affected parts of Texas, and that flooding and such are 'lesser evils' than drought and fire. I asked them about what the nature spirits, land spirits, and divination on this indicated. I pointed out that floods are more damaging to everything than fires, both in deaths, nature affected, economic destruction, toxins left everywhere.

Oh, look at the thread http://tinyurl.com/3qcoxfr , plus the link for flood and toxins and such http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44449393/ns/weather/ . 

They want to make a hurricane their bitch, and the heck with how many people it kills, how much property it destroys (hint - it would end more human lives and destroy more property than fires will). 

What magic would *I* use in a case like this?  I'd start with the protection of fire insurance that covers wildfires.  I'd add the insurance of evacuation.  And then I'd do the magic of PROTECTION for people/pets/property.   I'd work on becoming intimate with the local land there and the watershed before doing any work - for their spirits might not want the same thing that we humans want to impose on it. 

The protection magic in this case would be among the easiest, when working with the local land spirits and elemental fire.  Wild fires are already big on being arbitrary, burning one house and not touching the one next to it.  That's a feature that magic can influence.

Existing feature.  Magic can influence.  Not making fire my bitch.  But protection plus work with local land and the elementals earth, wind, water, and fire..  Not a working guaranteed to spread toxins across the land and into the watershed.

I'd not use the same hubris based approach that caused the problem in the first place.

Frondly, Fern