No one warned us about moving to Guerneville.
A quaint little town, Guerneville is nestled among giant Redwood trees in Northern California. The beautiful Russian River runs through it and meanders into the Pacific Ocean a few miles down the road. We heard the river sometimes floods, but it did so ten years earlier, and since this was a 100-year flood plane, the real estate agent explained, we had another 90 years to go.
It felt like moving to another country.
The lush greenery in Northern California was in stark contrast to the yellow landscape we left behind. The relaxed pace was reassuring after the mad rush of Southern California, which my partner and I grew weary of. And people's open mind was the best part!
"Down South" I had to keep a low profile as a Pagan practicing Earth Based Spirituality, while here the scene was brimming with women's circles, drumming circles, and seasonal celebrations. I felt I had come home.
We spent the first week unpacking and exploring our new surroundings.
It drizzled continually, but than it was winter, what else could we expect? After almost a week of continual rain, the radio started broadcasting flood-alert announcements. We laughed but decided to humor it and stock up on bottled water. The town's only big supermarket was mayhem. People's carts overflowed with canned foods, most of the bottled water was gone, and half of the shelves were bare. Having grown up in Israel, this looked exactly like the supermarkets of my childhood prior to the break of war: the same panicky accumulation of food, the same camaraderie in the long lines.
Our home was about half a mile from the river. Even if it flooded, it will surely never reach us.
By that afternoon the radio reported significant increase in water levels. We knew that our living quarters were safe, being on the second floor. Below us, on the ground floor, the garage contained all of my partner's woodworking equipment: a lath, a band saw, a drill press, and a large array of tools.
Reluctantly we went downstairs to fulfill our duty to the radio commentators. Looking at the slope leading to our home it seemed impossible that water would ever get there, but we opted for the "better safe than sorry" approach. With joint heaves and pushes we managed to tilt the heavy equipment enough to shove a tarpaulin under each corner, and make the bottom two inches of the equipment water proof. We felt overly prepared.
It was getting late. We stopped listening to the radio and retired to bed, reassured.
I was the first to wake up in the morning. Curious as to what happened, I opened the sliding glass doors and stepped on to the deck. The house was standing in the middle of a lake. My car was underwater; the roof of my partner's pickup track was in line with water level. The street sign has disappeared below the surface. The woodwork equipment was covered by ten feet of water. Otherwise it was calm.
Shock is not an adequate word to describe what I felt as I took in the view. What I saw was beyond the realm of possibility up to that moment. I woke my partner up and couldn't relay the news to him. He had to witness it for himself.
We stood in silence for a long while, watching.
When we finally went back into the house we discovered we were out of electricity, gas, and running water. The radio reported that Federal Authorities declared our area a National Disaster Zone. People were being evacuated to shelters. The rain kept pouring down, incessantly. My partner, industrious and creative, devised a way of cooking without an operative stove: pulling out an antique copper Fondue Maker, which had some fuel in it, and mixing ingredients from the fridge and pantry, he produced amazing pancakes for breakfast! By the same means he generated coffees, teas, and omelets throughout the following days.
We decided to pass on the offer to be evacuated.
In many respects we were in paradise: the silence was profound. The rain filled the buckets on our deck with fresh water. We had enough dry food to last us for a while. And we had each other's company. Had we opted for evacuation, we would have become refugees in a shelter Downtown Santa Rosa, the nearest big city, where we knew not a soul. We sat happily on our deck, occasionally waving to kayaks that paddled by. Some were onlookers, while others, from rescuing teams, asked if we needed anything. "Toilet paper" we smiled, and later that afternoon a few packs were delivered.
Our phone was the only working amenity in the house.
Stranded in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by water, we were able to communicate with family and friends in Israel and the UK. Mutual Pagan friends across the Atlantic called each other and created impromptu prayer circles. One of my friends said: "I realized that all my beliefs are being put to the test. If I believe in the power of intention, now is the time to practice it. For Real… What shall I visualize?' she asked. "See the rain stopping, and the water receding," we said. And little by little it did…
At the peek, the water reached two inches below our living room floor. We were stranded for five days in total, at which point the water receded enough for us to wade the grounds in knee-high rubber boots.
More then anything, this experience was a meeting with the force of Nature, and the intensity of Water.
It was clear, as water kept pouring from the sky, that Mother Earth was cleansing herself. The Sky sent down a myriad of little arrows, each shaped as a perfect, individual droplet. The Waters received them all, making each drop a part of the whole. The Earth underneath was so deeply soaked that her cup has runneth over. And we, the humans in the midst of it all, were free to choose our responses.
DeAnna L'am is a speaker, educator and trainer. Visit her at: www.deannalam.com