A Conversation with Mother Nature by Kimball C. Pier

I didn’t start really craving a three foot snowstorm until my knee started to bother me from running a few days ago. Up until then, I was happy to roller ski and run remembering that it was only six months ago that I was whining about too much snow and how it was hindering my summer activities, like running and cycling.

While my husband obsessively studies the weather maps and practically becomes hysterical when he sees a cloud, I just shake my head marveling at the folly of it all. All the beseeching, lamentations, cursing and bouts of uncontrollable sobbing when the sun is out yet again…Don’t they know that Mother Nature has supreme wisdom? She is unconcerned about the economic impact on ski reports and all the employees so desperate to begin earning money.

“It wasn’t MY idea to cut holes in the forest and put chairlifts in so people could ride up and slide down all day. If this silly idea of skiing were mine, I would have told them to walk up and ski around all the trees. It’s good exercise. People have become too fat and under-active anyway, they could use it.”

“But what about all the poor employees who need to earn money?” I argued trying to engage her empathetic side.

“When in the 53 years that you’ve know me have I ever been predictable?” I became defensive about how our technology captures her moods fairly accurately. “We can predict your moods pretty accurately,” I said almost with a tinge of haughtiness.

“I let you people do that for a while just until you get over confident and full of yourselves and then I usually become contrary and sometimes downright violent just to teach you not to get complacent. Remember last year?”

“You mean all those times when we thought it was going to be summer soon and then it was winter again?”

“Indeed. And don’t forget about earthquakes, tsunamis and Hurricane Katrina.”

“So how is a ski resort supposed to operate profitably when we can’t predict winter? Does it entertain you to watch all the corporate executives wringing their hands and drinking too many martinis?”

She took a long look at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Well actually it IS rather entertaining. Look, as I said, people do all kinds of silly things in order to make money. Ski resorts depend on me to provide them with the means to make money and I do not make weather to suit people who run around in expensive ski sweaters. I make weather to do what is best for the trees and rivers and lakes. Even though you people think you’re in charge of what’s best for the planet, you’re not. Remember, there are fish and birds who have survived for millions of years without polluting themselves out of existence. Humans have managed to destroy entire continents and pollute oceans in less than a hundred years. You’ve even wiped out members of your own species who knew better than you how to live with me not in opposition to me. Remember what Carl Jung said almost sixty years ago?

“But our progressiveness,though it may result in a great many delighted wish fulfillments, piles up an equally gigantic Promethean debt which has to be paid off from time to time in the form of hideous catastrophes" (CW 9.1,PAR 276).

“Hideous catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina and wildfires and tsunamis?” I inquired.

“Precisely,” said Mother Nature shooing a swarm of bees from beneath her skirts.

“So maybe we should trust that you know what’s best not only for the planet but for us too? And when people are unemployed because there’s now snow, perhaps we should be innovative in thinking of other kinds of fun, healthy activities that people can engage in so that people will come up to visit our resorts even when there isn’t snow?”

“Now you’re getting it!” she said.

“If it were up to me, I’d plan to offer mountain biking or hiking or having big yoga workshops or meditation training…or even cooking and winemaking classes!” I said.

“Imagine how good it would be if people actually slowed down, got out of their cars and explored this area more with their own two feet,” she said patting one of her most precious Juniper trees.

“I’m actually giving you the extended summer and fall that you wanted last June,” she reminded me.

And we walked together for hours smelling the pine and watching the river flow through its frost-covered banks.