Hurray for drains!

I learned the other day that the author Shakti Gawain has a first name from the 2nd wife of the Hindu god, Shiva, the Destroyer.  Several years ago, I read "The Gospel According to Biff: Christ's Childhood Friend" by Christopher Lamb.  That crazy but respectful fiction visits Jesus's boyhood and adolescent years.  Among other things, Jesus and Biff take a long walking tour of India and at one point learn about Kali, a ferocious goddess of destruction.  I thought then Who wants a god or goddess of destruction?

Creation - that's a good thing, right?  Destruction - death, sweeping fires, earthquakes, layers of hot, deadly ash flowing over land, buildings and people - really bad, right?

A couple of days ago, I could feel my poor little head was filled to the brim with reminders, plans, admonitions to get this done right away and to avoid too much of that.  I thought of buffers, something I have heard of in connection with computers and computer security. (The link takes you to pure poetry of computing, incomprehensible to me but intriguing.)  I guess it is some sort of information holding tank.  I thought of the paper The Magic Number 7, Plus or Minus 2 (1956) that says we can hold 5-9 items in our minds.  

My son-in-law is an expert builder and built our house.  He started by focusing on drainage.  Don't build in a swamp or a gully.  Avoid problems from poor drainage, collected rainwater or ice melt.  

Staying in a hotel room is unpleasant if the sink or toilet or shower doesn't drain well.

How We Die by the Yale professor of surgery Sherwin Nuland discusses the main causes of human death and how they work.  At the end of his book, he faces the often-asked question Why die?  Why can't my beloved xxxxx live and flourish forever?  That happened for a while.  Why need it stop?  Who ordered this aging/death thing, anyhow?  He points out that the next generation of life: people, animals, flowers, even planets I guess, is being born, is waiting to emerge.  

We need Shiva to clean our clocks, clear our decks, wipe the slate clean for the next message.  We need to de-junk and refresh all the time, steadily.  If we forget, that is ok.  Nature will do it for us.
(copyedited by L.S.Kirby)