A Fuji-what Effect?

It's rare. You've probably never heard of it. I know I hadn't. But it has turned this season of letting go into a real doozy.

There’s a local woman who has the words Village Witch printed on her business cards in the space where a job title typically appears. You might think she’s a twenty-something, having a bit of fun and taking advantage of the current witch renaissance (#witchesofinstagram!), but the Village Witch is actually a decade older than I am. The women in her family have been witching in these mountains— the Blue Ridge— for generations. A few years ago, driving the back roads as we looked at real estate, we found a road then a cemetery both bearing her family’s name.

This week, the Village Witch posted on Instagram that she was preparing for her Ancestral Vigil, compiling the names of those who have died since last Samhain. For those who don’t speak Witch, Samhain is a holiday happening in the vicinity of Halloween. It’s a time when the nights are long and the veil between the material world and that of spirits is thin. It’s also a time to honor the dead: both ancestors and those who have more recently passed.

I tend to be metaphoric when I think of “the dead,” honoring and mourning ideas that never came to fruition and dreams that shriveled on the vine. This death process was already in motion for me when Hurricane Helene slammed into Western North Carolina on September 27th. In the weeks leading up to the storm, I realized I wasn’t going to have another book deal this year, that I needed to mourn and move on from the idea of writing a second memoir right now.

The plan was to use the autumn to gently unravel from my full time career as an author, to ease into a few more retreats each year plus some editing and book coaching to deeply connect with other writers. Even before the rejection notes, I’d been itching for more community. In the days before the storm, I was surprisingly elated about this next evolution. Maybe I would even use my writing time to learn to write fiction.

And then Helene. Helene turned this autumn from a time of transitioning in my career sector to a full blown, full life makeover.

There has been some talk amongst amateur meteorologists about whether or not what we experienced here was the result of something called the Fujiwhara effect, a very rare weather pattern in which two storm systems begin to rotate around each other. Our first storm came in on Wednesday, dropping 8” of rain before Helene rounded the bend on Friday.

There’s something primal and captivating about the image of two storms circling, connected by some cosmic centrifugal force. My mind has turned it into a film complete with horrified weather watchers racing around a newsroom, leaning over each other’s computers while a satellite image of two spiraling cloud masses rotates on the overhead screens.

In the early days after the hurricane, a friend came to help us dig out. She had moved to North Carolina a few years back after losing her West Coast home to a forest fire. The fire was easier, she told me. It was swift and final. You could grieve and begin recovering.

But death this autumn has been anything but swift. It’s a slow uncovering and understanding of loss both at a personal and communal level. For days we’ve been cutting not only the (dozens) of trees that fell to the storm but also the wounded giants who won’t survive the next. It’s painful to hear the thud of their bodies hit the ground, the light suddenly harsh and glaring in their absence. Down the road, where the twisters did worse damage, a logging company is clear cutting what was once one of the most charming parts of this valley. Bull dozing through everything is the only way to get to the hundreds of trees criss-crossed on the ground like pick-up sticks.

I keep thinking of the Fujiwhara, the circling storms as I was hurriedly building a new website for editing and book coaching services (there are suddenly vast unexpected expenses— waiting till January is no longer feasible) while the chain saws drone and the trees crash. Wrapping up this years books with my publishing teams while juggling calls from FEMA and contractors and the N.C. Geological Survey (because there was a landslide, too). And trying to do it all in a way that doesn’t leave hungry ghosts clamoring for my attention.

A “ghost” is the lingering energy of something—or someone—that has passed. The hungry ones are draining. They disturb our psyches with their neediness—their need to be seen and acknowledged and grieved.

How do we let go fully, so the energy moves through and out of us instead of clinging? How do we handle loss and grief in a way that doesn’t leave us feeling haunted?

These are the questions I always dance with at this time of year. And this autumn, I’m so glad I have practice.

If you are a person whose life feels safe and tame, use this time to school yourself in letting go. Turn inward and see what you can harvest from this year that’s winding down. See what needs to be given back to the earth as compost. It might feel like small stuff… and that’s okay. It’s okay to release a negative feeling toward a friend or donate clothes you’re no longer wearing. You are practicing for the year when life throws you a curve ball, because it will, eventually.

And if you, like me, are watching your world change, if you are (quite literally) living in a landscape you no longer recognize, draw on what you know from smaller losses: It’s easiest if you let go willingly, it’s more complete if you let yourself mourn.

Sending so much love out into this beautiful, broken world—

xx Maia