Keep a Good Thought for Japan Tonight

I haven’t posted in so long here. Have been busy with so many projects but I was moved to say a few words about the devastating earthquake that has hit us here in Japan on Friday afternoon at 3:30 pm (3/11/11).

My family and I are OK but it was a HUGE scary event! The fifth largest earthquake in recorded history (8.9 on the Richter Scale), we in the Tokyo/Yokohama area had wide train stoppage (voluntarily, to check the rails) and cell/land phone outages but are otherwise just shaken up. The situation in northeastern Japan is the footage you have seen on the news: towns leveled, tsunami water and salt damage, thousands dead and missing.

We are in a tentative state, with hourly tremblors/aftershocks and a 70% chance of another big quake (3/12- 3/15).

There have been explosions of nuclear facilities, with limited radiation leakage, but I think they will largely be able to contain and limit that damage.

Yet, already, I can say that no place on Earth is better equipped to handle this catastrophe than Japan. People have been orderly, organized, generous,  other-directed, well-prepared, and civic-minded. I have not heard of one incident of looting or panic or disorder. This whole high-tech society has opened up to care for each other and, despite all the pain and suffering, that is a life-affirming thing to see.

If you are knitter who sees knitting as a meditation (kind of like a rosary), then knit a row— or 50— of kind thoughts/prayers for the people who are cold and hungry and sad in Japan tonight. They are the most deserving of that universal healing at this moment.

Or visit Knit for Japan and knit your bit for displaced evacuees.