"A threat: a terror: a fulfillment"-Le Guin

I remember hearing all about the Mount St. Helen's eruption during my Geology class at Texas State. My professor had been one of the lucky geologists who got to go and watch the eruptions and study the mountain. He only talked about how lucky he was to get to see such a great eruption and witness a moment in history such as that one. So, when I began reading this article, I had only positive thoughts about the eruption in my head.

I really loved the way that Le Guin talked about the volcano and the general public's reaction to the eruption. It is so interesting that when a natural disaster occurs in the world, people do take it personally. We begin to question our nations religion and question if the disaster is a act of God's wrath on a people or a nation. The truth is that it is just a natural disaster, they happen, with or without a divine intervention or message that is being sent. Like Le Guin says, "Everybody takes it personally". They try to justify the act and avoid the fact that it is just the way that nature and the earth works. If we knew more about nature and the natural world, maybe we all wouldn't take it so personally.

I also enjoyed the interpretation that Le Guin had about St. Helen's as well as the thoughts of others. She tells us that " In all the Indian legends dug out by newspaper writers for the occasion, the mountain is female." It even shows it in its name that the mountain has been called a woman. It makes the act of eruption so much more interesting when you begin to think of it in the terms that the mountain is a woman. One man, Hamilton, that Le Guin talks about compares the mountain to breasts and the eruption to cancer. Le Guin speaks of the eruption in terms of women's empowerment and the women's movement, which I really like reading about. I think of it as erotic and sexual. I mean, it is called a eruption...but that is just me. I find it interesting that Hamilton would compare the eruption to breast cancer. It shows again just how much we think of it as absolute destruction and an end to life. Really, it is not. Yes the mountain will change visually, but who knows what else will come from the eruption or what will happen next. It is a big mystery, just like anything else in nature.