When they went to bed the night before, they probably didn’t know it was coming. Or maybe they had a guess. Perhaps the thing had been rumbling and quaking the earth for days before. Either way, it exploded. On this date, April 10, 1815, Mount Tambora blew its top. This mother of a volcano is located in the Dutch East Indies and was recorded as one of the most powerful in history. It was so forceful that it killed 71,000 people and caused a global volcanic winter.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Dutch East Indies, like I was not familiar with them, they are now what appears to Indonesia. And Indonesia is a hodgepodge of islands located just north of Australia.
Anyway, the eruption of Mount Tambora was huge. It blew 95 cubic miles into the atmosphere. Ka-Pow.
The fallout was felt around the planet. That year, 1816, became the year without a summer. Crops failed in many places, but especially across Asia. It is estimated that an additional 100,000 people died from famine. Also, it was the second-coldest year in the Northern Hemisphere since 1400. North America experienced frost and snow in June and July.
I hope the planet doesn’t ever have to see a big boomer like this one again, but I am sure it is bound to happen. When we were in Hawaii, we had the good fortune to take a helicopter and explore the openings of a volcano there. The hot molten lava still oozed a path from its gaping mouth. Sort of like me, drooling on my pillow in the middle of the night. But bigger. And more fierce.
Anyway, we are bound to see a similar explosion in the future. That’s because there are about 1,350 potentially active volcanoes worldwide. This does not include the continuous belts of volcanoes on the ocean floor.
Volcanoes are amazing portals. They give us a glimpse of the hot, living interior of the Earth. A look at what lies beneath. That being said, they’re also dangerous. Even small-ish ones can have a global impact.
There is a bit of a mystery to them — an allure — that is known by my generation. I think this is because they were romanticized in movies long ago. The helpless blond victim was always being dragged up to the mouth of the volcano by the local tribes as a sacrifice to quiet the beast. The hero was always on his way to save her. Oh, we were sucked into those movies back then.
Those volcanoes and so many of the other works of nature. They show the potential of our planet.
Volcanos remind me of humans at times. On occasion, we are known to erupt. Some people more than others. We have all experienced anger in our lives. We all know the feeling. Perhaps we even look a little like a volcano with our faces getting red and hot. We feel that emotion rising up in us until, suddenly, it explodes. And we say or do something that we later regret. The lava has flowed from our mouths. And it has left its path.
I’ve had this feeling a few times during my life. As I’ve gotten older, the volcano has mostly gone dormant. But anger is a human emotion that no one can escape entirely. And it seems that certain people only get worse, their eruptions increasing all the time, with a certain fallout not far behind.
I wish our planet would be free of those times of human volcanos.
So today, as with every day, I hope for peace. In my life and for all others.
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“Angry people are not always wise.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
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“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”
― Ambrose Bierce
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“Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth.”
[Verse 223]
― Siddhārtha Gautama, The Dhammapada
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