Last night before turning in I watched a piece on the Magellan channel about volcanoes.  Scenes of Mount St. Helens in Washington state, before and after the eruption on May 18, 1980 were featured.  An eerie aspect in the piece was a radio report, from an observer on the mountain side describing in some detail the eruption.  His audible words, calm and precisely descriptive were almost certainly his last.  He died in the pyroclastic flow of super heated gas and pumice that rolled down the mountain.

The Magellan piece also featured accounts of what happened to the residents of Pompeii in AD 97 when mount Vesuvius erupted.  Pompeii was a favorite resort city of the Roman well-to-do.  Tectonic plates move, the mountain shakes and heaves, — then the magma some kilometers beneath the crust is released.  The wealthy, the artisan, and the slave all die in the same manner.

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This morning my first thought upon awakening was to wonder if this was the day the massed Russian armor would erupt in a enveloping wave of steel, obliterating everything across the Ukraine winter countryside.  There’s always increasing pressure, partially concealed under the surface,

the conservative-minded, in this case Russia’s Putin aspiring to take what they desire by raw force.  There is a rationale, the wrapper of misdirection.   It is said that action must be taken to defend against the threat of political passions to form unacceptable alliances.  Whether Putin of Russia or McConnell of the US senate the goal is to achieve and hold all power.  Always.  It is a very old story.

So this morning I awakened to wonder if this is the day that another eruption is to take place?  Do you feel the shaking?

There’s always a break in the thin crust somewhere.  Life is snuffed out in a pyroclastic flow of steel and shrapnel.