There’s a big storm expected, but the forest is quiet. At dusk I can hear only the whistling chuckles of quail, the har-de-har of a woodpecker,  the hopeful chirping of a few tree frogs. And the rattling of my heart.

I admit, I’m anxious about this storm. My mind invents catastrophes. What if a deluge of rain liquefies the soil and my house slides down the hill? What if gusts of wind blast away the roof? What if trees topple, roads crumble, power goes out? What if, what if, what if?

So I did what I do when I’m anxious: I picked up a pencil and began to draw. It’s the best medicine for me.

Anti-anxiety drawing usually reflects what I’m currently reading, and these days I’ve been reading The Tradition of Household Spirits by Claude Lecouteux. It’s a treatise on European household traditions of appeasing the spirits, or the dead, or dead spirits, or somebody “up-there” so that they’ll protect the home. Most of the traditions seem to protect the home from fire (always a problem in open-hearth houses).

I started thinking about the things that people have traditionally used to protect themselves and their places. So many amulets and charms to help ward off the storms of life!