... the gods must be angry ...

... it's getting hot in the kitchen ... tectonics are active in the Caribbean as Haitians can confirm ... reservoirs and water supplies in several territories are struggling to keep up with demand while political ennui still cedes leadership to street leaders and popular figures ... for better and for worse ...

... but imagine you were part of a residual population of about five thousand, in a place where the habitable landmass has shrunken by over two-thirds ... spare a thought for the isle of Montserrat where the Soufriere Hills volcano, dormant for all of recorded history, has resurrected itself ... for all of recent memory ...

... these days I'm considering the psychological effects of being up close and personal with the molten core of the planet ... Montserrat is thirty miles from where I am ... of course this means I don't feel the heat directly but I had cause to think, "hmmm ... a wha dis?," when shifting wind patterns brought a blanket of ash, or tephra, for the week just concluded ...















... when you think about it, the emissions have to go somehere ... lava ground oozes out of, and around, Earth's boil ... finer spew casts further afield ... the latest event looked a lot like this helicopter reconnaisance shot sent to me in October ...

















... thirty miles away asthmatics are compromised ... clothes, cars and deckchairs accumulate grimey sediment, landscape dullens to bleak ... and, with every dusty inhale our environmental psychology adjusts its concern level ... visitors too, from non-volcanic parts of the world, who were fortunate enough not to get caught up in flight-scheduling hell due to weather or ... gasp ... pyroclastic vulcanicity, get to breathe in a thick island breeze that actually has texture ...













... this photo of a famous Shirley Heights sunset horizon, taken a few days ago by my friend Bernd from Germany, shows the paradox of superb Montserrat visibility and the particle stream which came to occlude so much ... heading towards Antigua ...

... I'm not sure we can blame global warming for volcanos and earthquakes but we can link it to climate change and erratic weather patterns ... I'm pretty sure rain doesn't douse magma but it sure could ease regional water shortages and restore verdant gleam ... if only I had knowledge of an ancestral rain dance ...