Where God, Bob Marley and Hurricanes Collide
Plus: FAFO Florida Sheriffs
What to do now, except, write?
I saw
say something to that effect, in writing about her experience evacuating from the disaster zone in West NC.I hear the prompt in my own head now because, what else?
I evacuated from my home in Sarasota, Florida late Saturday, October 5th. Hurricane Milton made direct landfall there Wednesday, October 10th. This was the second hurricane in two weeks, in addition to the sudden death of a loved one.
Here is the exploration of current thoughts, a timeless message in Bob Marley’s lyrics, humanity, FAFO Florida Sheriffs, and God:
True colors show in crises
This has felt like a collective psychosis in all honesty. The last few days of waking up, I’ve had no idea what State I’m in (Florida, North Carolina, where, why?) what day it is, what’s happening, is this real? Then I get my bearings. Yes, it’s real.
Before Milton hit, I’d close my eyes at night and all I could see was the track of Hurricane Milton crossing Florida, plastered all over the news and seared in my mind, with my home in the “bulls eye” of the path. The track was correct.
What I didn’t see coming was the onslaught of “tropical tornadoes” (132 tornado warnings issued, the second most in US History - I think 19 made landfall, another number said 40, I don’t know which it was) ripping up an area on Florida’s East Coast hours before the hurricane made landfall.
I watched from far away through storm chaser cams, the Ryan Hall Y’all (YouTube) livestream, and traffic cams in disbelief. I’ve seen tornadoes before. Never seen ones like that. But I digress.
I am not here to talk about the storm beyond this. I’ve done enough of that.
We had several days warning.
It’s strange how you’ll actually upset people by warning them to get out of harms way.
It’s strange how you feel guilty for removing yourself from harms way.
It’s sad that it even had to come down to this - but I will not elaborate on the “this” here.
There are no adequate words to watch what could potentially be death headed toward people you love - and to feel like you are some sort of traitor, because if they are going to die, you should die too.
Then… you kinda hit a strange point.
You can only vocalize approaching danger or really anything of importance to uninterested ears for so long before you realize… there is no sense in it at all.
Not everyone sees things the same way.
Just kinda hard when it’s a gamble of life and death. But for now, no more talk about this storm. My loved ones in the area who stayed are safe, that’s the only thing that mattered. Everything else can be dealt with.
Thoughts on God
Context: I evacuated to family’s house in Charlotte, NC when leaving Florida:
Tonight, I sat outside in the cold North Carolina air; such a strange phenomenon, cold air that isn’t humid — it’s only been a little over a year since I was in a climate that wasn’t Florida, but I got really used to it, and whoa. It felt like another world.
I thought about God.
I thought about what happens to us, to any person, when we are disconnected from God.
Catastrophe.
I turned my head to the side as I exhaled the cigarette smoke, staring off into the trees, and heard,
“That’s our job - to connect.”
Whoa.
I can yammer on 25/8 about how connection is the antidote to all human problems, but if I am not connected to God, my connection to other people is going to be full of dysfunction.
We do need one another, but how can I expect to harmonize with others and with life itself if I am not harmonized within myself?
The way to harmonize with myself is to harmonize with God. Then, as Beinsa Douno says, all other matters and contradictions sort themselves out.
There are a lot of reflections around the complexities of this situation, perhaps this is the point.
In any crises, true colors show.
Our vulnerabilities show, and our strengths show.
The worst of the worst, the best of the best.
It can be horrifying when the collective mask falls off.
It is also illuminating.
I told my friend Chelsea whom I spoke with on the phone today, that her, and a few others truly reminded me what human friendships are supposed to look like. The contrast of their presence against the stark doomscape made this very obvious.
I spoke to another friend today, Jay. He reminded me what friends are about too.
I will omit names for this situation, but a friends daughter texted me today.
She was given my number by her parents / my friends. She’s a great kid. I was exhausted after the past two weeks (two hurricanes and one suicide of a close friend) and it was catching up to me.
I was zoned out, trying to sleep but couldn’t, and my phone buzzed.
It was my friends daughter, and she said to me,
“Hi auntie Tess, it’s ****”
(Im omitting name because I’m protective of kids, especially on the internet)
When she sent that to me, and we are not blood related btw, dude, that brought joy to my heart. What an honor it is, to matter that much to a kid where they’d call you by the title of auntie. You might as well have put a crown on my head in that moment.
Two things happen when a wonderful kid calls you auntie:
You feel old haha
You can see and feel God’s love.
The young ones, they are magical in every sense. They give us hope, even when the world is in total calamity. It was like God was telling me, in a time where I felt very alone, “Yo — you’ve got family here on this earth. See? You belong.”
I also saw it tonight, as I am staying with people in Charlotte NC whom I could say are “family friends” but that’s an understatement. They are actual family, we just aren’t blood related.
I was cleaning my guns with one of them tonight, and it felt like something you’d do with family. He is older than me and was teaching me stuff I didn’t know, making sure I had it right, the maintenance of my own weapons and such.
Then he passed on to me his dad’s gun cleaning kit, said I could have it. It felt like a treasure, because it came from him, and from his dad. It was an honor. Felt like God was showing me again, “See who I have blessed you with?”
My other family/friend here in this house has known me since I was 3 years old. She has prayed with me multiple times in the last few days.
On the day of Milton’s landfall, we were both praying and watching it unfold. Suddenly, she got this feeling / message that things were going to be okay.
She couldn’t explain it but I could visibly see it on her; she looked exhausted, but it looked like something had been lifted from her.
Shortly after I picked up on the same energy; I don’t know why, but I had a feeling that my loved ones in the area were going to be okay. And it turns out, they were. They were all in the direct hit of this thing and they all survived.
Tonight, I watched her draw pictures and create art with tools I have no idea how to use, and it’s so cool to see humans being wonderfully themselves, wonderfully creative, even when the world is collectively melting down. Things are calm here.
It was here in this house, in the very room I write this in, that I first accepted Christ into my life. Not because anyone suggested it or told me to. I saw how well it worked for them, and to my own surprise, I wound up doing this through prayer when in my room here. That was June of 2023. Summer Solstice.
Snapping out of the hypnosis
I walked up the stairs back inside and knew I needed to connect with God again and snap out of this haze— this hypnosis that I am somehow unworthy, this hypnosis that I have to fight to earn people’s love or to be seen as who I am, the hypnosis that I have to fight and perform and be “this or that” enough to be worthy of someone’s consideration and care.
Because when under this hypnosis, you come to view yourself as lowly, pathetic, all these horrible things, you forget who you are, you lose all perspective.
Fuck that. I started to snap out of it tonight.
In the grief group I went to last week, before I knew we had another F****** hurricane coming, I got to open up about a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t even write about here.
They said something I want to share with you.
For those of us who’ve lost a lot of people, for those of us who know what it is like to lose everything we know multiple times over, maybe this will hit you like it hit me.
In regard to the indescribable grief one goes through, and how isolating and crazy that makes a person feel, as the world continues to spin but you stand frozen in time for possibly years on end, they said,
“God will use who’s left, not who left.”
Meaning:
God is still there, and will show up through who is STILL left here on Earth. God isn’t gone along with who has already left Earth.
Life isn’t gone because the life you knew is gone.
Life isn’t gone because the people you loved are gone.
Love isn’t gone because the people you loved are gone.
That is in no way to discount the tremendous love (grief) we have toward who has left. We continue to have our own energetic ties and relationships with the departed, if you know, you know. They just change.
But when we are here, and they are in the world invisible to us, well I suppose I’ve been living only partly here, and partly… somewhere else, for a very long time. Far longer than just this past two weeks. Years.
And with each death, it compounds. With every loss, it compounds. I didn’t fully understand how grief worked because I never thought to “get help” for it until I noticed it putting me in a very dark place last week — that’s my red flag to seek help.
I’m not willing to be in “the dark place” ever again. Spent way too much of my life there. No more.
With so much trouble in the world (cue the Bob Marley song) it occurred to me to look for the Good.
It occurred to me to look for what God may want me to find on this journey of evacuating my home, on this journey of displacement on several levels, not just physical; mental, emotional, spiritual.
Things turned upside down really fast, and suddenly, nothing looked as it did. Nothing was as it seemed. Very little, at least.
It’s important to notice what isn’t working and why. It’s important for me to notice what within me seems to be okay with said things that aren’t working.
Then, it’s important to notice what is here, right now; Where is God, right now?
Bless my eyes this morning Jah sun is on the rise once again The way earthly thing's are going Anything can happen...
How is God showing up in my life, in our lives?
Surely there is still hope.
Even things like this, they make me proud to live in Florida. This was one of several sheriffs who went on TV today telling looters to FAFO (Fuck around and find out):
As someone who has lived through absolute chaos, rioting and looting for an extended period of time in (California 2020) - I cannot tell you how relieving that is.
In California I dealt with crazy stuff that I’m not going to write about, but if I would have defended myself with lethal force, I would have gone to prison for life.
I defended myself with mere WORDS and went to jail for that in one case. Long story.
Well, now I sound weird so, the short version:
A man (upstairs neighbor) was harassing me for weeks during the quarantine - I tried to get apartments to intervene, they wouldn’t evict him because “evictions were not allowed during covid”.
Six weeks into this harassment he sprayed chemicals through my kitchen window that burned my skin because he didn’t like the noise from my online class (everything got moved to zoom, I was in school) that he could hear from my laptop at 3 PM.
Walls were paper thin, so I’m sure he could hear it - I could hear a neighbors blender two units down. But he was a bit psychotic, being on lockdown for… shit at that point… maybe 7 months of quarantine?
He wasn’t the only one losing his shit, there were a lot of suicides and violence to say the least.
He would flip shit if I coughed or cleared my throat, so apparently the voice of my instructor through low volume laptop speakers warranted spraying me with God knows what.
I confronted him face to face. That escalated obviously, and I said, “If you ever fuck with me again, I’ll fucking kill you”. That’s not a crime. That’s considered a contingent threat. I said *IF*.
However, he immediately called the police.
He told them I said “I’ll f**** kill you” which in LA is considered “criminal threat”. I learned both of these things (contingent vs criminal) after I got arrested, as I wasn’t aware WORDS would warrant a felony, but it turns out they do!
After 6 months the DA rejected the case and I was free to go. I never saw a judge and the charge was dropped.
Why is that?
The on-site manager to the apartment complex saw the whole thing go down. He heard what I said (it was also on camera) and provided his witness statement to the arresting officers. Funny how they arrested me anyway, but I digress.
Once the District Attorney saw it, they knew it was worthless because contingent threat is not a crime.
Basically, the dude who got upset didn’t quote me directly, he paraphrased, and that landed me in LA County Jail (Covid Edition) which was a real treat.
I have ZERO idea why i’m telling you this.
I guess being faced with potential “civil unrest” and looting due to a large area being out of power, gasoline, water, cell service, and people knowing others are very vulnerable, well… I’ve seen what happens in those scenarios, so I suppose it brings back memories.
However, this is a different landscape. This is Florida.
People are still people - but we have several FAFO sheriffs and citizens abounding. Myself included.
Re-entry back to my home in Florida where this damn thing (hurricane) made landfall should be interesting. I’d imagine people might mind their P’s and Q’s since this is a red state with castle law and constitutional carry - but there’s always a few who get stupid.
Luckily, I don’t live in diet north korea anymore, so it won’t be a widespread zombie apocalypse that is heavily encouraged and often initiated by governing authorities.
We’ll see.
You see men sailing on their ego trip Blast off on their spaceship Million miles from reality No care for you, no care for me.. So much trouble in the world; So much trouble in the world All you got to do: give a little, give a little Give a little, give a little..
Ah, what else though, of the God things.
What else is arising?
Realizing that….
A lot of changes are to be made. This is a good thing. I won’t disclose those yet. But it’s likely the beginning of a new chapter.
The spiritual prison break began in July. I started getting burned out with performing live plus creating an album plus working a full time job plus alllll the rest of life, so I backed off on performing live.
I overcorrected and went to far into the isolation zone, that was not something I should have cut back on— not without replacing it with more “out in the community with other dope human beings” activities. There’s one thing to adjust right there, and it’s an easy fix. Obviously there are others, but that need not be discussed here.
Other things this’ll make you notice….
Not interested in being loyal to a person, persons, community, identity, etc, that would leave you dead without a second thought
No more apologizing for my existence or walking on eggshells
Not interested in smiling faces if their hearts are empty
Sometimes crises bring people together, sometimes people burrow even further into la-la land, having the opposite effect.
Not interested in trying to help anyone, or be part of anyones life, who does not reciprocate energy
Not interested in chasing after anything
Believing people, places, and things when they show me who and what they are
Slowing down and putting myself first - running 10000 mph and trying to be all these things for everyone and everything else will get you killed. In more ways than one.
Be outside more. Be in public and around people more. God doesn’t have to show up where I think God is “supposed” to show up - where’s the fun in that, anyway? God is all over the place, and God is usually right at the edge (and beyond) my comfort zone
There’s no shortage of work that needs done after this hurricane. Work in harmony with the ones who want to work, with the ones who want help or want to help, but also — take care of yourself first. As someone told me recently, “People will take whatever you give them” — one has to be reminded to set boundaries. It’s not that people are bad, it’s just that they’ll take what you give.
Someone has to know when to say yes and when to say no, and the only person responsible for what I say yes and no to in life is me. As said earlier, you are the CEO of your own life.
Things don’t happen to you, they happen for you. Meaning, I will not be a victim of any circumstances. I will find out what they are here to teach, and what they are asking of me to become.
Take care of your body. Slow down. Connect to God. No more self-neglect.
“If you want to be effective, do what you love.”
🌟 One-time donations/support: Buy me a gallon of gas
We gotta finish with the Bob Marley Lyrics:
So you think you've found the solution
But it's just another illusion!
So before you check out this tide
Don't leave another cornerstone
Standing there behind,
We've got to face the day
Come what may
We the street people talking
We the people struggling
Now they sitting on a time bomb;
Now I know the time has come:
What goes on up is coming on down,
Goes around and comes around...
So much trouble in the world
So much trouble in the world..
❤️🩹
God is always in you. Inseparable.
You’re a trooper Tesstamona!
Or should I call you auntie Tesstamona? 😁
Glad you and yours are all well.
🙏💖
Yes. Exactly. GOD bless you.
Love is the answer
Love is the key,
Love is the reason, to be.