Realizing Bakunin's assertion that destruction is also creation, the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens achieved a level of devastation that displaced an entire region, dissolving landmarks and turning day to night. The primary feature of the initial pulverizing eruption was a haunting column of ash railing into the sky, forming what geologist Catherine Hickson has poetically termed a "stone wind." This enormous plume, a convulsively beautiful and dangerous giant, appeared motionless yet continually growing like a consuming mass, both moving yet also in its repose.
I have memories of finding in our yard fragile, hand-sized rocks coved with gas holes that my parents told me were from the volcano. Although they may have been from the eruption, my youthful assumption that these rocks came directly from the column of ash to my yard seems highly unlikely. In spite of the truth, those rocks came to metonymically symbolize for me the eruption and its aftermath. In school years later I created a rather unimpressive sculpture, a dull block of clay covered with holes, of which the psychological implications are today overwhelmingly obvious.
Posted 8/30/2005 10:22am by Doc Shibek@71.36.100.98
As a convulsive association, Hurricane Katrina's wet fury escapes my mouth and blankets an erupting Mt. St. Helens to cause massive steam clouds, which rise and twist like flaming boat trails. My mind fills like a flooded volcano.
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