The River Giveth

Image: Sunset over the Ventura River and Topatopa Mountains after the storm.
© Yvonne Wilber

Believe it or not, Spring has come to California, just as we are experiencing yet another round of rainfall. Our soggy state has seen its share of inclement weather this year, with storms piling up like jets coming in for landing at LAX. 

We have been introduced to a new meteorological term this year: the “atmospheric river.” This may sound benign compared to the “cyclone bombs'' that plagued the midwest earlier this winter, but they have been just as devastating.

In case you haven’t heard (just kidding), unprecedented amounts of snow have buried roads, homes, and whole communities across the state. And with rainfall measuring 400-600% above average, rivers have been rising to historic levels, levees have failed, communities have been flooded, homes destroyed, and lives disrupted, if not devastated.

My home lies less than a mile from the Ventura River, which rushes and then flows gently from the southern edges of the Los Padres National Forest to the Pacific Ocean. The Ventura watershed is for the most part undeveloped land, and a large portion of it is designated wilderness.

And how wild it can be! On January 9th the peaks above us received up to 14 inches of rain in less than 24 hours, swelling the river to historic levels. 

My husband and I had spent a perilous few hours driving home that day from the Central Coast, and stopped in the driving rain to view the river before our arrival.

For much of the year the river appears dry as it runs underground; during our drought-plagued winters it resembles not much more than a creek. But on that day it stretched across the entire floodplain, a raging, roiling maw of milk-chocolate brown water, devouring everything in its path. Full grown trees, boulders, roads, buildings and bridges; all chewed up, spat out, or eventually cast into the sea. 

The following day I carefully rode my bicycle around the area to survey the damage. To the West, Santa Ana Creek had jumped highway 150, leaving a mess of tree limbs and debris scattered across the now-closed thoroughfare.

To the South the mountainous road I usually drive to the coast was closed as well. As is common in this area during heavy rain, the saturated ground slumped off the mountain and across the roadway.

Curiosity and concern powered me as I pedaled around the traffic barrier. I wanted to see what my more rural neighbors were up against. At the first spread I noticed the pen of weaner calves was empty, and the stock horses were missing as well. No vaqueros practiced cutting or roping, and no collies slinked alongside the fenceline. A new stream cut a channel where there had been no stream before.

Eventually I came to a halt because the slick road made travel on my skinny tires precarious. Bulldozers were already at work clearing the mess. We all know that bikes, mud, and heavy equipment don’t mix.

I found myself stopped near the driveway to a ranch, on a stretch of road I affectionately call “Peacock Row.” I know to drive carefully through this area to avoid hitting one of the local fowl, just as I do further along when I pass through “Deer Alley.” (Just another reason to curse at a Prius, sorry.)

The ranch lies on a narrow strip between the mountain and the river, which generally meanders gently several feet below the level of the pastures. But not today. Three feet of topsoil was chewed away leaving naught but a field of rocks. One tin-roofed building balanced at crazy angles atop exposed boulders. Feed buckets, plastic lawn chairs, and tack lay strewn across what remained of pasture.

I used to love driving by that ranch, with its horses, donkeys and goats, and strutting roosters trying to show up their large blue and green companions. Imagine the frenzied work it took to get the animals to safety as the rain fell and the Ventura rose!

With this in mind I spoke to a woman who was walking toward me on the road, dragging a trash barrel. In response to my query of how she was holding up, she jerked her head and responded, “Well, this is my ranch.” Weariness lined her face like the brown rivulets of water still crossing over what was left of her pasture. I looked over and pointed to the roof of her house, one of the buildings still standing. “There’s one of the peacocks. He made it.” She smiled with her mouth but her eyes remained weary.

Every day since January I drive past that devastation, and every week the bulldozers attempt to keep the mountain at bay. And I find myself sad.

The world can be a sad and weary place.

The subject of worldview has come up in conversations recently, and my good friend mentioned that a commonly held aspect of worldview is the belief that the world is either very dangerous, or actually quite safe.

If I were to align with either, it would be that the world is relatively safe, though that exposes both my physical situatedness and my social privilege. It also exposes my understanding of “world” as the realm of human activity, culture, or society, and not the earth and the dangers it presents.

We build worlds and subject them to us, but we are subject to the forces of the earth, that is, Nature.

Nature is not a respecter of persons. As the saying goes, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. On a pleasant day the river brings refreshment and recreation. It fills our reservoirs and aquifers. It brings life. At other times it rips and tears, bringing death and devastation.

That is the beauty and the danger of this planet we call our home. Neither God’s nor Nature’s fury is meted out by its fires, droughts, or floods. If we are in fact experiencing catastrophic weather events due to climate change, then we can look to ourselves if we feel the need find a source, or to cast blame.

Nature is blameless though. We can apply these same thoughts to the mountains, the desert, and the ocean.

All beautiful. All dangerous.

We humans too, are part of Nature. To live well with Nature is to embrace her beauty, and its danger. Yes she is “red in tooth and claw,” yet “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” To live well with Nature is to respect her and receive her as she is. May we open our hands, eyes and hearts to this mystery.

The River giveth and the River taketh away; blessed be the name of the River.