Most of us don’t experience the world in its raw form, we never get to see mother nature at its finest. I’m not speaking of the rolling fields or running streams, I’m speaking of the raw forces that formed the earth.

Sure, as we road through southern Washington enjoying the rolling hills near the Palouse to the massive Columbia River, we can see the beauty and serenity that the area brings. It’s all there, we enjoy its peace, and we marvel at its calmness over us. No one ever thinks about the violence it took to create. The years of evolutionally cycles that it’s gone through in order to provide such a site.

In 1980 I was fortunate enough to experience this process semi firsthand. During the spring of 1979 I moved to Eastern Washington and on May 18th, 1980, I got a dose of what that earth shattering marvel of mother nature was like.

I was serving in the Air Force at the time and our base was putting on its annual open house for the community. Mt Saint Helens erupted at 8:32am with a violent explosive eruption. There was no lava, but just the same the 9600 foot snowcapped mountain instantly melted the snowpack sending water and ash down its north face and changed the landscape forever. Spirit Lake instantly filled with debris and its new water surface now lies 120 feet higher that its previous level. The entire Tuttle River valley filled with trees, houses, mud and ash leaving the valley to this day appearing like a moonscape.

All of this I experienced through TV like most. Sure, at the Air Force Base, we received almost an inch of fine talcum powder textured ash. We had to close the Open House and quickly get the planes protected as best we could. But nothing made more of an impression than seeing the mountain up close some 44 years later. Yes, trees are coming back and there are still signs of the eruption and when you see this all in its current state, knowing what it did then and how it still scares the land, that’s when you understand the power of Mother Nature.

We all live in this land, and we should all be good stewards of the land we live in. But to think that our presence on this earth has such an influence in it’s being that whether we get our energy from one source or another, in my opinion is absurd. Do your part, respect our land, but stop thinking that people and what they do are going to bring an end to this world. The arrogance to this belief is laughable.