Interview With a Weather Witch II
This is the second half of my interview with Esmerelda, a local practitioner of weather witchcraft. You can read the first half here, along with the very lively discussion in the comments. I want to thank everyone who’s contributed their thoughts; there has been a lot of great conversation about the ethics of weather working, its plausibility, and whether it’s actually dangerous. Esmerelda addresses these issues more in depth in this half of the interview.
When did you first think you might have this talent? What finally convinced you that it was real?
I have always been convinced that the weather forecasters didn’t know what they were talking about–after all, in my experience, they are rarely right more than a third of the time. It turns out this is not a common assessment of their competence…
But I didn’t figure out what I could do until the summer of 2006. I was very skeptical; after all, it was just a coincidence that the parched Midwest got rained on right after I was deeply saddened to see the fields of dead corn as we drove there. After much soul-searching, I was open-minded enough to conduct some little tests. I spent that September trying things out, and they worked better than I could have possibly imagined.
Here’s one thing I did: School was going to start in a few days, and I found out that there was going to be an outdoor assembly. But, because of a budget shortfall, the school had not rented a tent. They could have held it inside, but it really would not have been the same, as there would not be enough room for the parents who needed to attend. And it was Pouring! And the forecast called for it to continue pouring for the rest of the week! Six straight days of rain. I tried to change it, but didn’t really know how. So, the night before, I sat and relaxed and pleaded and prayed to the powers that be to bring sunshine to the children for their beautiful assembly. By 7am, the rain had stopped. The clouds slowly but surely started to clear, so that it was sunny at 11am, just in time for the 11:30 assembly. All of the parents were quite surprised, because they were so sure that it was going to keep raining for the rest of the week. It was thrilling!
A couple of weeks later, I learned a bit more about how I can affect the weather: I was getting my car tuned up, and the TV in the waiting room had a piece about a huge wildfire burning in California. In some areas, school had not even started yet, because the air quality was so bad. The sky was black with smoke, and the fires were burning closer to inhabited areas, despite the valiant efforts of the firefighters over the previous two weeks. They said that the rainy season was not due to come for at least 5 more weeks, and the winds were blowing the fire out of control. My heart went out to the people, and animals and trees; I had a deeply visceral emotional response. That evening, after the kids were in bed, I wanted to find out exactly where the area was (I remembered the names from the newscast, but didn’t actually know where they were on the map.). I also checked the weather reports for the area, and while they still were calling for sunny skies, I saw on the radar a big rain storm, sitting and spinning over the ocean, just west of LA. It only took ten hours for a storm to materialize out of nowhere, but it didn’t know where it needed to be, so it was just sitting there waiting for the next instruction! I blew it in to the counties that needed it most, but my lack of geographic knowledge probably held things back a bit, as only scattered showers hit bits of the region. Then I got desperate and told the rains to blanket the area in downpours. The next day, it did just that. After a couple of more days, when the fires were mostly out, the firefighters were having trouble locating the remaining underground fires because the rain was eliminating the smoke. So, the rain had become more of a hindrance than a help, so I thanked the rains and said it was time for the sun to shine on the efforts of the firefighters. And despite a long-range forecast of 5 days of continued downpours, the sun came out the next day, and the dry season returned to southern California.
This was about 7 weeks after I first suspected that I was having atmospheric effects. I was able to create specific weather not only in my backyard, but 3000 miles away, too.
And I have been working with it ever since!
I have since decided that perhaps the key to my being able to strongly and consciously affect the weather (instead of occasionally doing it accidentally) was having cranio-sacral therapy. In February and March of 2006, I went in for this type of therapy (which uses extremely gentle pressure at various points alongside the spine), to help me overcome my lifelong battle with insomnia. There were some old, built-up blockages of energy, which the therapist released; I have been much better able to fall asleep since then. But my connection with the weather also became much stronger after this therapy; it may be irrelevant, or else it may be the key to understanding my recent shift in talents. Either way, the deep relaxation that I am now able to reach is necessary for me to place requests with the weather.
Is it unethical to mess with nature in this way?
It can be, but I have found that if my intentions are anything but purely good, that it does not work. I have made it my mission to only wish for changes that bring average, pre-global-warming weather while also bringing happiness.
For instance, the farmers need rain. If I focus on the altruistic gift of bringing rain to help the plants and farmers, then I am doing good; if I can time the rain to avoid the weekend, then that is even better, as more people will go out and commune with nature if it is not goopy out. Besides, lots of people get married on the weekend, and have picnics and reunions, so I like to keep them as sunny as can reasonably be expected. Thursday, on the other hand, is a great day for rain.
Bringing the most gifts to the most people swells the heart and increases the power. It feels good to help others!
Note about hurricanes:
I did not really begin to deliberately affect the weather until the summer after Katrina. I have sent a number of hurricanes away from Louisiana; my grief over the devastation by Katrina has made me very protective of the people there. Although a couple of hurricanes have been predicted to hit there in the last two years, none has. I pray for the welfare of the people in populated areas; there has been so much drought around the Caribbean, that I could not bring myself to completely dissipate every one of them. But one of the big ones that hit Mexico this year was aiming straight for a populated area, but “miraculously” shifted course at the last minute, and dropped two intensity levels, before hitting land in a forest preserve. In 2006, most of the storms downgraded in intensity before hitting land (mostly Florida), and then took right angle turns to the North, to get lost in the North Atlantic. It was considered a good year for Florida—they got the rain they needed, but without the winds. It was one of the rare times when a tropical storm hit Nova Scotia! And for the last two years, once we hit ten storms, I set about dissipating every tropical storm that even thinks about forming after that point. Some still developed, but not past the lowest level. I also was keen on bringing rain to the US Southeast; a couple of tropical storms brought rain to these areas (although unfortunately not enough).
Mother Earth needs hurricanes in certain parts of the world; the damage they cause is partially the fault of humans who have deliberately put their homes in harm’s way. While I want to help the people, I also must keep in mind that the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico need these storms. However, the storms have become more frequent and more extreme as a result of global warming. Downgrading the intensity and dissipating extra storms is a helpful thing to do to combat global warming…
Is global warming something that can be addressed with this skill? If so, how?
Absolutely! I address this issue directly in the 2008 Almanac, but here is the summary:
While our lousy treatment of Mother Earth is definitely to blame for the mess we’re in, our highly mobile society is also to blame, as very few people have correct expectations for their local area’s weather, which can cause it to diverge from historic patterns. If I’ve heard the weather forecast and I say to you, “Gee, it’s supposed to be hot today,” and you are originally from Alaska and I am originally from Florida and we are standing in Pennsylvania, then both of our interpretations for “hot” will be out of sync for the Pennsylvania standard.
Another problem is the belief in global warming itself: now that much more of the world population is convinced that there are changes afoot, the changes have massively accelerated! Group-think is an important cause of further environmental degradation due to warming.
But as I learned last winter, the direct, intentional weather witching of a small group of individuals can overturn the warming effects of millions of vaguely worried people who have gone to see a movie. (Remember An Inconvenient Truth? Remember how the winter was behaving like the ones predicted for century from now? Remember how the temperature came crashing down all across America in late-January, causing unpredicted frosts all through the California growing areas? I did a working with my children (who may also be strong in weather-witching), and I won’t do it again, because they thought of everybody they knew and wished for them all to have cold weather. Unfortunately, this included their aunt in California. Sorry!)
It is the moral obligation of Pagans (in general) to be kind to Mother Earth; to leave a light footprint, to use our dollars and our voices to boycott polluters and encourage eco-friendly companies. I do these things, as I know most readers of this blog surely do as well. At first I thought that this is all that I should do, so that the problem will continue to get worse and more people will wake up to the reality that they can’t keep going on like they have been. But the harm that’s being done in the meantime is too painful to watch; and the political will seems to be mounting, so now…
…I am taking my protection and restoration of the planet to a new level.
Our job (if you all will join me!) is to focus on what the weather should be for each area, so as to rein it back in. We also need to work towards rebuilding the various ice sheets that are falling apart; if this means weather that is more cold than the average in some areas, then so be it.
What advice do you have for people who want to pursue weather witchcraft?
Focus on the positive (Spirit doesn’t understand negation and will bring what you don’t want if you focus on the negative. This could explain why the prayers of the very religious folks of the Gulf Coast have not been able to keep the hurricanes away: they need to pray for low wind speed and sunshine, instead of praying to be spared from a horrible storm. The Jamaicans may be better able to phrase their prayers for maximum benefit than the folks who keep getting buffeted elsewhere in the Caribbean basin.)
Be altruistic. Everything you do comes back at you three times; make sure you are only doing good!
Only wish for conditions that are within the historic range of normal for the area you are affecting. (I worked hard to put the historic averages for the US into the 2008 Almanac.)
Start small, start local, but do realize that you can branch out to grander things.
Thanks, Esmerelda!
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I know that Arizona is a desert… but it is a wet one during key times of the year, and it needs that moisture.
From late July until late August/early September, we get a seasonal series of storms that come from the Gulf of California… very hot and very wet weather that create dramatic thunderstorms and historically have filled our dry river beds to almost the point of flooding in less than an hour.
The cacti in the area depend on these seasonal torrents, and the mighty saguaro, which is only found in this one desert (most of Arizona, and parts of California and northern Mexico) literally needs a good flash flood in order to spread its seeds. While the rain is inconvenient to us humans, the loss of these rains has been deadly to the local environment.
Over the last decade, though, these seasonal storms have been disappearing. Part of it is the artificial high pressure zone created by all of the buildings in Phoenix, creating an island of persistent heat… but rain fall all over the Sonoran Desert has been dropping at a steady rate… People think that deserts are supposed to be dead, or something.
So, if I could make a request… Some time next summer, give us a good one.
The more lightning and the faster the rain falls, the better.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Wow… I don’t mean to be a jerk, but I think this is completely preposterous.
Don;t get me wrong–I think it would be sweet if magic/k was real, and I think that on certain purely internal, psychological levels it may very well be real, but this kind of objective external miracle-working? I absolutely don’t buy it. The evidence seems like the kind that is so obviously loaded for confirmation bias that it’s basically meaningless. At best, we’re talking about the human propensity to make conenctions in their world that don;t really exist.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Kullervo, even if you don’t believe in her magic, Esmerelda still made some very good points. We do, with our thoughts and prayers, need to concentrate on the positive instead of the negative. The Law of Attraction, like attracts like, does work even when we aren’t aware of it.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Nope, I pretty much completely reject the “Law of Attraction,” too. You can;t just go flouting it around like it’s a given. The Secret may jave sold a bajillion copies, but all that shows is that there are a bajillion suckers out there. Or perhaps more specifically, I reject the idea that it has any control over purely external events like the weather. The best I think it could do is affect the way we perceive the weather.
January 27th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Kullervo, Jeff here: thanks for your comments, as always. Esmerelda isn’t available to post an answer, so I’ll see if I can step in…
That would require a statistical analysis over at least 100 instances, perhaps an order of magnitude more, along all sorts of dimensions — temperature and precipitation against seasonal averages and short- and long-range forecasts… Of course, as they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But again, she’s not trying to convince anyone. She has her experiences, and she has her intuitions, and that is enough for her. She hopes that those who are intrigued and interested by her experiences will feel moved to try it, as well.
I don’t think it was Esmerelda’s intent to convince anyone, but just to show the path she herself took. Esmerelda has a degree in psychology from MIT, and learned experimental techniques from luminaries like Stephen Pinker; she knows she’s not providing scientific proof here.
January 27th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I’m not actually asking for scientific proof, despite the fact that I might sound like it sometimes. I’m just expressing my skepticism, which actually seems to be a thing I can;t shake off even when I want to.
If someone tells me that their experiences and intuitions do the trick for them, then I can’t really dispute that. Those seme like pretty reasonable bases for personal belief, in my opinion. I’m just saying that my own experiences and intuition differ somewhat strongly, and that I am unconvinced by Esmerelda’s.
But replies like PAtricia’s, above, grate on me. It makes no sense can;t talk about things like the “Law” of Attraction as if they’re firmly-established givens, when they’re extremely controversial, widely disputed, and according to some, totally discredited. Saying “oh, but the Law of Attraction says X” isn;t the trump card that Patricia’s making it out to be.
January 27th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I can’t speak for anyone else. I do believe in the Law of Attraction. It works for me. Sorry if that grates on you, Kullervo.
January 29th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Eh, you believing it doesn’t bother me at all. You invoking it in the discussion as if its a common lnaguage that we all speak and take for granted when I strongly do not… that grates a little.