Straight Shots IX
I Am Storm Damage--Isermann's Song to Jacob Boehme
AI IS NOT USED ON THIS SITE
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STORM DAMAGE
Not all hurricane damage is flood and wind destruction.
For about a week prior to hurricane Milton (which made landfall on Oct 8) we were getting ready for the storm, frantically working to shore everything up and tie our own stuff down and our neighbors as well. Then we “bugged out” (evacuated) about 70 miles south to Clewiston, Florida to ride out the storm.*
It was about then that it hit me. Sharp unrelenting pains in my hip and leg when I walked or moved. Then a creepy paralysis in my right foot and lower leg that would not let me walk correctly which ultimately locked me up in a painful stumbling gait.
It was not until several days later when we arrived home (Oct 11) and started the clean up of downed branches, trees, and debris. I did my best to help but it became evident that my injury was not going away. Barely able to walk by the 14th I hobbled into my chiropractor office who confirmed that it was a sciatic nerve entrapment on my right side. He proposed that I might have pushed too hard prepping for the storm but said I was not the only one he had seen with similar injuries lately. He adjusted what he could and (basically) wished me “good luck”.
I spoke to my medical doctor’s screener who was somewhat less help but she spoke to the doctor who authorized a prescription for prednisone and blew a kiss in my direction while in a subsequent call her staff said, “We’re sorry we can’t treat or prescribe any medication, you will have to go to the emergency room and receive help there. Or get and appointment and come and see us in a couple days.” I thanked the lady on the phone and apologized for any inconvenience that I may have caused them. After all I should have planned my plight with them so as to not cause any sort of disruption in their day.
We were scheduled to work at the Ocala Fine Arts Festival that weekend and we would be gone by the time the golden doors of the medical establishment would open to me and they would treat me to their highly skilled largess perhaps doing something to relieve the excruciating pain that had taken up residence in my body. Nonetheless, I humbly begged their pardon for any misunderstanding I might have had about them being doctors and not institutional functionaries. Perhaps they will see me in December.
So off we went to set up at an art festival, me lame in one leg on a walker and my poor wife still suffering from a fractured bone in her hand that she suffered from a fall at a hardware store which was not her fault. I with cane and walker trudged forward not from the negligence of a bungling retail store’s mismanagement but instead suffering from storm damage, another uncounted victim from Milton.
Next time I will just stand in line at the nearest Emergency Room and hope for the best.
*An hourly journal about our progress during Milton is posted in NOTES https://substack.com/@dsreif/note/c-71973880
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Song: To Jacob Boehme
by Thomas Isermann
Mr. Isermann is one of the directors of the Internationale Jacob Böhme Gesellschaft, Gorlitz, Germany and a well known author.
When he saw a vehicle with seven wheels rolling through the narrow valley of the river, where the waves of Oder and Neisse meet after war, he was very frightened. Rolling like a ball in all directions, but we do not know the way, so this rolling all ways turns itself around. An image of the world, nature and what lies behind it may be called divine, enclosed the soul into its dead, old, cold body. The prophecy of the wars make him tired, it will bring you, my death, into every house, he sat in one, left the cobbling behind and crossed pen and sword with the devil and was the evil one's best adversary, with a force that knew no delicacy, with a discipline that was not wisdom. So carefree, sad and at odds with black angels, and in delusion, to avert a fall through words, hounded by a church that with rage the terror of her faith with the blood of the great, long war. And you, my death, cannot take life from us as it is. The devil may have died in the Twilight of the God. the curse of the gods lies in their return. The devil himself cannot be killed. Why did God give us to his devil? To carry this question like a cross, Jacob Böhme wrote his ink wet books .
Original German:
Als ein Gefährt aus sieben Rädern er durchs enge Tal der Neisse rollen sah, erschrak er sehr. Wie eine Kugel rollt in alle Richtungen, doch wir wissen nicht den Weg, so war ihm dieses wälzende, sich immer um sich drehende Getüm ein Bild der Welt, Natur und was dahinter mag göttlich heißen, schloss die Seele ein in ihren toten, alten kalten Körper. Die Offenbarung mit den Kriegen naht, sie brachte dich, mein Tod, in jedes Haus, in einem saß er, ließ das Schustern liegen und kreuzte mit dem Teufel Feder, Degen und war des Bösen bester Widersacher, mit einer Wucht, die keine Zartheit kannte, mit einer Zucht, die keine Weisheit war. So ungelassen, traurig und im Streit mit schwarzen Engeln, und im Wahn, durch Worte einen Absturz abzuwenden, gehetzt von einer Kirche, die mit Wut den Terror ihres Glaubens mit dem Blut des großen, langen Krieges segnen sollte. Und du, mein Tod, kannst uns das Leben nicht so nehmen, wie es ist. Der Teufel mag mit Gott gestorben sein. Im Trommelwirbel wird ihre Neugeburt erkannt, der Fluch der Götter liegt in ihrer Wiederkehr. Der Teufel selber ist nicht totzukriegen. Warum gab Gott uns seinem Teufel hin? Um dieses Rätsel wie ein Kreuz zu tragen, stellt Jacob Böhme seine schweren Fragen. https://www.jacob-boehme.org/de/
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WOW. What an adventure. Sad but sure. Telling poem by Boehme. Thanks.