One year ago on Feb 1, the old Shell oil refinery located down the street from our house that has stood for a century and creates jobs for thousands in our area including me burst into flames. It was a Sunday and the holy pagan day of Imbolg, a sacred Celtic cross-quarter fire festival.
After waking up late and enjoying our coffee, we heard the alarming sounds of the refinery intensify into a roaring. We ran to our porch to see wafts of black smoke desecrating the winter sky.
This was a hot destructive fire that came alive feeding off hydrocarbons. It devastated the site. Many parts were burnt to toxic ash. This loss disrupted and transformed lives, businesses and economies, including mine, and it continues to do so.
The next day I showed up for work but our entire landscape had changed. I administrate that site for our construction company. When I left for the weekend everything was in order. My reality was pretty much the same as it had been for years. When I came back the job I had known and did efficiently was gone.
From that moment my life ceased to be the same and both the customer and our company scrambled in chaos to patch together ways to return it to the way it was. But the old systems and protocols didn’t work and the new ones desperately slapped on like limp band-aids created even more chaos.
Of course the entire 2025 year has felt the energy of the Tower with the abrupt, violent and devastating destruction and transformation of our world. One day we had a country we understood, the next it was wiped clean away.
The wisdom of the Tower conveys a hard truth, but a fact of nature. What is annihilated needed to be destroyed because it is no longer functional. The severity of Tower energy occurs when the facade crumbles because earlier less destructive, preventative and corrective measures were unwisely not taken.
Think about the wisdom of forest fire management. Small burns to regulate chaotic growth prevents the entire thing from lighting up. That is what we are dealing with now. It’s a reckoning and a loss. We can mourn but we are also given the opportunity to transform how we create our lives in more sustainable ways for ourselves, our families and our communities. The question now is what do we value and how do we elect a government that will rule by those values.
I adapted at my job. I had to change and grow up in many ways. Sucks. Like the rest of us I had a hard year that I thought would kill me but in fact forged a new, stronger person. Tough lessons for us all. That is the sacred task awaiting us. We have no choice anymore but to wake up to our choices, desires, responsibilities, complicities and create a new world.
Thankfully, Imbolg is the celebration of the new seed being activated. What feels like Groundhog Day – waking up in the same nightmare – is now replaced by the relief of the Tower. Start again with new eyes. We need to make better choices to create a world in which we are healthy and functional and joyful. We do not need to manifest another round of suffering and mismanagement that leads to cultural Tower annihilation. We, as a species need to get the message. I am positive that we got this. Bless!
Blessings to all sentient beings, relations, ancestors, and lightworkers. Blessings to all beings sharing this transformative moment on our sacred planet. Blue Dog Temple sends love, protection, joy and clarity. Namaste!!!
PS – Anyone notice the face in that fire in the first pic? Devic Being indeed.
PSS – Refinery Photos shot by Beloved Husband.