Earthquakes, tsunami waves, reactors

My heart aches. Of all the times for me to be away from my family in Japan! I arrived in the U.S. for readings, research and a working retreat the day before the massive earthquake off the coast of Sendai. The devastation from the quakes, tsunami, landslides, fires and damaged nuclear power plant reactors in northeastern Japan is difficult to grasp. The images are terrifying. My family is safe, our home, located south of Tokyo, is undamaged. But we who live in coastal areas of earthquake-prone Japan are all too aware it could easily have been us racing to evacuate from our low-lying areas to the nearest high ground before the waves smashed.

I anxiously await every update from my family. I remain glued to livestream news from Japan (in Japanese--NHK, TBS), twitter, facebook, blogs. And I am thinking of all my friends, colleagues, students and their families from northern Japan and hope they are miraculously safe and well. My heart is in Japan.