Historic Time, Historic Floods

On the day of sankalpam preparations for the April 12 Samvatsara Abhishekam (one year anniversary of the opening of Iraivan Temple) Siva showed His tangible presence by offering the island His own abishekam in the form of a massive rainstorm, a tropical downpour that brought 14 inches of rain to the monastery in 12 hours! We have rain guage records back decades, and even back to 2017 and 2010 we only once in 40 years of record keeping went beyond 10 inches in a day. So this was memorable. Then, showing the soft side of His grace, Siva flooded the island with sunshine on the following day, allowing for parades, pradakshina, marvelous dance and more in summer sun. There was, as you will see, some garden damage, but considering the scale of the storm, not that much. Interestingly, it reminded us of the Kadavul Temple kumbabhishekam day, 1984, when another impressive storm struck.

DALL-E imagines the rain-filled clouds above the island. And the torrent.

An empty five-gallon bucket was overflowing the next morning.

This 4-foot-diameter tree cluster (three weed trees of little value) fell into a pond, It will have to be removed professionally.

And some of our new paths experienced significant erosion. All fixable.

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