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Amethyst Qu
Bio
Seeker, traveler, birder, crystal collector, photographer. I sometimes visit the mysterious side of life. Author of "The Moldavite Message" and "Crystal Magick, Meditation, and Manifestation."
https://linktr.ee/amethystqu
Stories (67/0)
Some Things I Remember About the Cedar Fire
That time it was the biggest fire in California history. That time the guy stood in the popcorn room of the refugee hotel. (In October 2003, we were still called refugees.) That stunned look on his face I already knew too well. That awkward elbow-out way he held the phone at his ear because we still thought you had to hold your cell phone to your head. What he said: “My house is gone, my folks’ house in San Bernardino is gone, I can’t get them on the phone, I’m done with southern California, that’s it, it’s over.” What my friend’s voice shouted from my phone: “Mom’s great-uncle is in San Bernardino. We can’t find out if he’s alive or dead. You’re closer, you can get through, can you please call him, he’s blind, he just made a hundred.” Yes, two fires at the same time. More than two, come to that. But the Cedar Fire and whatever they called the one in San Berdoo are the only two I remember now. At this hotel, the refugees were allowed to bring their pets. Most were floof dogs, big-eyed and curious and a little hushed as they looked up and down the check-in line. One woman held an Amazon parrot. You couldn’t go outside because of the smoke. But everyone spilled out of the popcorn room with their plastic cups of complimentary wine because the popcorn room was too confining, too red and yellow, too bright somehow. And also it felt rude to sit there while this guy called everyone he knew who still had service. So into the lobby and across to the lounge where there was a seventies-style glass patio door overlooking the famous pool. It had a heavy plastic cover on it. The guy was stuck on repeat, something I’d noticed before from victims of shock: “I didn’t even have time to get my wallet. My house is gone, my folks’ house in San Bernardino is gone, I can’t get them on the phone.” A woman somehow out there in a jogging costume. Ponytail jaunty. A pink sweatband. Pink sweat shorts. White running shoes. She thought she was doing something healthy. The look on the man’s face before he went out too: “Somebody has to tell her to get inside.” The way he pulled his shirt up high to cover his nose and mouth. All the times a robot voice picked up when I called the great-uncle: “That number is not in service.” Eyes dazed, phone out of battery, the guy told me the same story in the same words: “My house is gone, my folks’ house…” Had I repeated myself like this when my little house was crushed under 20,000 pounds of red pin oak? I must have. The sense of looking in a mirror was too strong. That time a few weeks later when I read they had more fire trucks in low-income New Orleans than wealthy San Diego. There was public corruption somehow somewhere. There would be an investigation. Although maybe it was Orleans Parish that was corrupt, and somebody was putting relatives in all those jobs. Who remembers that part now? I don’t. That time later yet in the open-air bar near Villa Tunari, Bolivia. Wet and green and who knows how many thousand miles away. Here I sat, drinking wine with the old frenemy who still lived in San Diego after all that. Well, I was drinking it. He said Bolivian wine was undrinkable, and anyway he didn’t need to drink to share his endless yarns about the endless fires, and finally I said, “We were stuck downtown during the Cedar Fire,” and he paused for a beat, and then he said, “Hmm. The Cedar Fire? I don’t remember that one.” By then, there had been too many. It was October 2009.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
The Scarlet Macaw's Secret
Before dawn, we find a spot on the bridge between two likely patches of forest. It's a good place to watch for the Scarlet Macaws flying from one area of good habitat in the Chiquibul National Park to the other. Or, rather, it will be a good place when the fog clears.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Is Officially Extinct. Top Story - October 2021.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has called the game. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct. Well, my friends, the referee’s whistle has been a long time coming. The slow-rolling deliberate killing of this bird in the 1930s and ’40s is a terrible story of human greed — and a very well-documented one.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
Night of the Living Cutie-Pies
Author's note: I grabbed these off-the-cuff candid photos at a public party in Venus Fort, Tokyo in October 2012. We all know how the movie goes. In the event of the zombie apocalypse, the first thing you do is l̶o̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶o̶l̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶f̶f̶ head out to the mall to pick up some supplies. A secluded mall, far out of town, big and overbuilt, with everything you need, is just the ticket.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Horror
We See More Rufous Hummingbirds Than Ever While Their Population Is Crashing
What happens when a common bird seems to be everywhere-- and yet the cold hard census numbers show that its population keeps spiraling down? Will we act in time to save that bird? Or will we trick ourselves into waiting until it's too late?
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
Gone But Not Forever
When Jason Molina sings, "I've been riding with the ghost/ I've been doing whatever he told me," you don't doubt the guy for a minute. What better way to start any Halloween playlist than with a song from a guy who knows from ghosts, real ghosts, the ones that won't be bought off with a scoop of candy corn?
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Beat
Butterflies of Bolivia. Top Story - September 2021.
Author's note: This isn't just a story about photographing butterflies in rural Bolivia, although it's certainly about that. It's a story about the unexpected gifts of beauty we meet in wild places. A shorter version of this story originally appeared on another platform.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
Moldavite: Dangerous Stone That Blows Up Your Life?
Author's Note: This article is a reprint of a previously published Medium story. As the author of The Moldavite Message, I’ve had some pretty off-the-wall experiences with this mysterious green tektite. Is it a powerful stone? Yes. Can it help the metaphysical student blast away emotional and psychological blocks? Also yes.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Motivation
Non-Random Encounters With Swallow-Tailed Kites
“Our most beautiful bird of prey... Hanging motionless in the air, swooping and gliding, rolling upside down and then zooming high in the air with scarcely a motion of its wings, the Swallow-tailed Kite is a joy to watch.”-- The Audubon Guide to North American Birds
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
Black Diamonds Off the Back of That Guy's White Ford F100
Call it 1993. One summer in the early 1990s, hubby and I were selling raw stones at the Harrison County, Mississippi gem and mineral show. A guy in a white Ford truck with Alabama plates pulled up. Nervous guy. Probably broke too, because he doesn't have $60 to pay the booth fee. Instead, he sort of slipped sideways into the show, and pretty soon he arrived at us.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth
'We Weren't Always Extinct'
In 1993, I bought this landscape stone from an Arkansas woman selling crystals for$1/pound off a table by the side of the road. Oh, I bought some crystals too, but this chunk of extinct fossil seabed grabbed my attention. From the sound of it, her husband and their sons had collected it against her advice.
By Amethyst Qu3 years ago in Earth