July 16, 2025 ā¢ 26 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Something ancient moved through Texas that day Not
just water, not just weather,but grief.
Grief so vast it swallowedcabins, camps and families.
Whole.
Over a hundred lives lostChildren, elders, mothers, sons.
And somewhere in the stillnessafter the flood, silence turned
(00:22):
sacred.
This wasn't just a naturaldisaster.
This was a collectiveheartbreak, a reckoning, a
reminder that no one, no mattertheir race, background or belief
, is immune to tragedy.
But when that tragedy strikeson soil soaked with a history of
racial exclusion and silence,the echoes of the past come
(00:43):
crashing into the present.
And today we listen.
If you feel this episodealready speaking to something in
your spirit, pause for a momentand tap that like button.
It helps this truth reach morepeople who need to hear it and
lets the algorithm know we'redone being silent Trigger
warning.
(01:04):
This episode contains sensitivediscussion surrounding loss of
life, racial trauma, historicalinjustice and natural disaster.
Listener, discretion is advised, especially for those
personally affected by recentevents in Texas or anyone
navigating grief, grief andtrauma.
We hold space for you here.
(01:25):
Before we begin, I want topause and speak directly to the
families and communitiesdevastated by the recent floods
in Texas, to the mothers wholost children, to the children
who lost parents, to the friendsstill waiting for word, to the
survivors carrying unimaginablegrief.
My heart is with you, myprayers are with you, my spirit
(01:49):
stands beside you.
We mourn not only the liveslost but the futures that were
taken too soon.
May those who perished beremembered with love.
May those still missing findpeace or return home, and may
those who survived find strengthin the arms of their community
and healing in time.
This episode is not just abouthistory.
(02:11):
It's about humanity, and I willtell this story with the
reverence it deserves.
The night the water rose, it wassupposed to be a night of
celebration, fireworks, familybarbecue by the river, but on
July 4th 2025, the sky had otherplans.
The rain didn't trickle, itpoured, pounding the Texas hill
(02:33):
country with relentless force.
In the dead of night, whilemost were asleep, the Guadalupe
River swelled with unnaturalspeed.
What was once a peacefulcurrent surged into a monstrous
wall of water, rising over 27feet in just under an hour in
some areas.
By the time the sun came up onJuly 5th, it was too late.
(02:53):
More than 130 people, many ofthem children, were gone.
Entire families were swept away, homes obliterated, bodies
missing, and all of it happeningin the same counties where the
land had for generationswhispered warnings no one ever
fully heard.
One of the worst tragediesstruck Camp Mystic in Kerr
(03:15):
County, a place with a longstoried history, nestled along
the river's edge.
Parents sent their daughtersthere for spiritual enrichment,
sisterhood and summer joy, butthat night 27 souls from that
camp never made it home.
Many are asking why weren't theflood alerts sent out earlier?
Why didn't Camp Mystic evacuatewhen the warnings came in?
(03:36):
Why were there no sirens?
And why did the very systemsmeant to protect falter in their
hour of need?
This wasn't just a naturaldisaster.
It was a compounded failure ofcommunication, preparation and
response, with human lives asthe cost.
And while no one can controlthe rain, we have to ask who's
(03:58):
responsible for the silence andwhat stories were washed away
before we ever got to hear them.
Where the waters met history,there's something about land
that remembers, even when peopletry to forget.
Kerr and Kendall counties arenestled in what's often called
the peaceful hill country ofTexas.
But peace, like silence, can bedeceptive.
These counties weren't built oninnocence.
(04:20):
They were shaped by power,exclusion and quiet codes of who
belonged and who didn't.
Let's be clear Slavery existedhere, not on the scale of the
Deep South or East Texasplantations, but it was here in
the form of domestic labor,forced farm work and unpaid
(04:41):
servitude.
Human lives cataloged asproperty.
Black hands clearing, brush,cooking meals and unpaid
servitude.
Human lives cataloged asproperty.
Black hands clearing, brush,cooking meals and raising
children who would grow up tocall them.
Less than when the Civil Warended, these counties didn't
throw open their doors.
They closed them tighter, andout of that closeness grew
something much darker thesundown town era.
(05:03):
Sundown towns weren't alwaysmarked by signs.
Sometimes the signs were thesilence, a look, a warning, a
story passed quietly.
Don't get caught here afterdark.
Caraville, bourne, hunt thesetowns might not appear in every
textbook about racial terror,but for Black families, they
(05:24):
carried an unspoken truth.
You were not welcome to livehere, and you were definitely
not welcome to stay past sunset.
There were no Black churches,no historically Black
neighborhoods, no celebrationsof Juneteenth, just invisible
lines.
And when you crossed them, youdid so at your own risk.
And so, generation aftergeneration, black families left
(05:48):
or avoided these placesaltogether, not because they
didn't love the land, butbecause the land and the people
on it refused to love them back.
Even now, in 2025, census datareveals the residue of that
exclusion.
In Kerr County, less than 2% ofthe population is Black.
In Kendall even less so.
(06:09):
When this flood came crashingthrough these counties, through
these historically exclusivetowns, some of us felt something
stirring.
Beneath the headlines, itwasn't joy, it was recognition,
an eerie awareness that thewaters didn't just flood a river
.
They flooded a history that hadlong been buried the legacy of
Camp Mystic.
Camp Mystic wasn't just asummer camp.
(06:32):
It was and still is a symbol, asymbol of legacy, lineage and
exclusive belonging.
Founded in 1927, camp Mystic hasoperated for nearly a century
as an elite Christian all-girlscamp in Hunt, texas, located on
a prized bend of the GuadalupeRiver.
Generation after generation ofwealthy white Southern families
(06:56):
sent their daughters here, notjust for campfires and canoe
races but to be molded into thekind of womanhood that would
continue to uphold the samesystems of privilege that built
this region.
But what most people don't sayout loud is this Camp Mystic was
never built for everyone.
It was built for a veryspecific kind of child, white,
(07:17):
affluent and well-connected.
Its website may speak ofsisterhood, tradition and
spiritual growth, but fordecades the deeper, unspoken
truth remained Black and browngirls were never truly invited
in, not as campers, not asleaders and certainly not as
equals.
The staff, often brown-skinnedwomen, hired to cook, clean or
(07:39):
assist in silence the campers,daughters of oil, executives,
state legislators and legacyTexas wealth.
The environment, policed,restricted, curated.
This wasn't inclusion, this wasinsulation.
And all of it profitable.
Camp Mystic has made millionsover the years through
(07:59):
registration fees, privatedonations and tax-exempt
religious status.
Some sources estimate annualrevenues exceeding $4 million,
with parents paying up to $6,000per child for a few weeks of
sacred sisterhood.
That money flows in, butaccountability Not so much.
(08:22):
Let's talk about what happenedon the night of the flood.
At 1.14 am, the NationalWeather Service issued a flash
flood emergency.
Not so much.
Let's talk about what happenedon the night of the flood.
At 1.14 am, the NationalWeather Service issued a flash
flood emergency.
By 1.30 am, the water wasalready rising at a rate no
human could outrun.
Yet reports show that CampMystic did not immediately
evacuate its campers.
The reason, according todirectors, they were monitoring
(08:42):
the situation and they were notable to evacuate the campers,
and relying on walkie-talkiesinstead of mobile alerts because
campers weren't allowed to havephones.
Some might call that tradition,but in a crisis it became a
trap by the time the alarmsreached full urgency cabins were
already flooding.
Girls were pulled from theirbeds in the dark, rushing
through mud, chaos and water.
(09:03):
27 lives gone, including thecamp's co-owner and director,
dick Eastland, who had runMystic for decades with his wife
and business partner.
His death was confirmed, butquestions about their
decision-making, disasterpreparedness and moral
accountability remain.
And now grieving parents,mostly white, affluent and
(09:29):
politically connected, aredemanding answers.
They are asking how this couldhappen in a place so steeped in
wealth, prayer and tradition.
But here's a hard truthProtection is often assumed when
privilege is present.
Camp Mystic was never builtwith the expectation that
catastrophe could reach them.
Mystic was never built with theexpectation that catastrophe
(09:50):
could reach them.
Meanwhile, so many of us, thosewho grew up outside the gates,
have always known that disasterdoesn't discriminate, but
neglect does.
And now the very river thatframed their legacy has
rewritten it.
The river remembers whenancestral energy moves.
There are moments in life whenthe physical and the spiritual
collide, moments that shake usnot just in body but in soul.
(10:16):
The floods in Texas weren't justmeteorological events.
They were ancestral reminders,they were energetic ruptures and
for those of us with spiritsight, we felt it.
The Guadalupe River has flowedfor centuries through Comanche
land, through slave-walked soil,through Jim Crow towns and
whispered threats after dark.
That water has seen things.
It has heard cries, coveredfootprints and held secrets no
(10:38):
history book will ever print.
So when the rain came and theriver rose in fury, some of us
didn't just see water.
We saw memory.
We saw the bloodlines that werecut short by exclusion.
We felt the pain of those whowere pushed out of these towns
with nowhere to run.
We heard the voices of theenslaved, of the disappeared, of
(10:59):
the invisible, and, most of all, we heard the ancestors
stirring.
See, this wasn't about vengeance.
This was about recognition,about a spiritual ledger that
has long been out of balance.
And when balance is denied longenough, nature answers.
When communities buildprivilege atop pain, when they
profit from stolen silence, whenhistory is whitewashed and
(11:22):
black grief is erased, the earthremembers, the water remembers,
the spirits remember.
And so this flood didn't justtake lives, it took illusions.
It ripped open the facade ofsafety, wealth and invincibility
(11:57):
that institutions like CampMystic were built upon.
It said We'll be right back.
Coincidences don't echo thisloud.
When disaster speaks In fire,wind and water, there's
something happening beneath ourfeet and it's no longer subtle.
It's loud, it's spiritual andit's tired of being ignored.
(12:19):
We are witnessing more thandisaster.
We are witnessing a reckoning.
Let's start with what's beenburning the plantation fires.
Ashes that speak.
In Louisiana, the NottowayPlantation, the largest
remaining antebellum mansion inthe South, once romanticized as
the White Castle, went up inflames.
(12:41):
That same plantation was builtby the of 155 enslaved people,
their blood woven into everybrick, their bones buried
beneath the soil thatgenerations danced upon in
ignorance.
People held weddings there,they drank mint juleps on
(13:02):
balconies built by humansuffering.
They turned trauma into tourism.
And now it's gone.
Fire claimed it, and maybe,just maybe, it wasn't just
faulty wiring, because the landknows and sometimes the land
(13:22):
returns what it's been forced tohold.
Florida's forgotten dead.
The gas plant lies beneath,right here in Tampa Bay, where I
live.
Another message came, this timeby wind.
On October 9th 2024, hurricaneMilton roared across Florida
with rage, tearing throughinfrastructure, uprooting the
(13:43):
false security of concrete andsteel, and when it hit Tropicana
Field, that massive stadiumbuilt to host sports and
generate millions, the stormripped its dome wide open like
it was paper.
But here's the part peopledon't want to talk about.
That stadium was built over asacred crime scene.
The gas plant district was oncea thriving Black neighborhood.
(14:05):
Families, churches, smallbusinesses, culture, and, like
so many places in America, itwas stolen, bulldozed, buried,
not just physically butspiritually.
Beneath Tropicana Field lie theunmarked graves of Black men,
women and children, displacedand discarded.
(14:26):
For the sake of progress, thecity paved over our dead and
called it development.
So when Milton came and thestadium peeled open like a wound
, I didn't just see weather, Isaw a warning.
You can't build empires on bonesand expect peace.
You can't erase generations andexpect silence.
You can't bury the truth andexpect the storm to spare you.
(14:48):
Ancestral unrest is real Acrossthe South.
Plantations have burned,churches once built by enslaved
people have been struck bylightning.
Towns built on black erasurehave seen sinkholes open,
floodwaters rise and wind peelback every illusion of control.
People call it coincidence, butour spirits know better.
(15:11):
This isn't just climate change,it's cosmic change.
It's the land reclaiming truth.
It's the ancestors saying weare not resting.
You may not hear their names onthe news, you may not find
their graves on a map, but theirenergy is in the storms, their
grief is in the wind, theirmemory is in the water.
(15:31):
And whether by fire, flood orforce.
They are speaking.
The only question now is will wefinally listen, spiritual
reflection, honoring the dead,awakening the living?
Take a breath.
This isn't just a podcastepisode.
This is a remembrance, areckoning, a ritual in real time
(15:53):
.
And if you've made it this far,I want you to pause, not just
with your ears but with yourheart, because the dead are
listening, the ones who builtthis country brick by brick,
breath by breath, who never gotheadstones, just unmarked fields
, who were drowned in rivers,whipped into silence, buried
beneath shopping malls andstadiums.
(16:14):
And now they are rising.
So what do we do when theancestors are restless?
They are rising.
So what do we do when theancestors are restless, when the
storms come not just from thesky but from spirit?
We honor them.
For the ones who were washedaway, to those lost in the
floods of Texas, to the childrenof Camp Mystic, to the parents
(16:36):
swept from their homes, to thenames we may never hear but
whose souls were claimed by theriver, we light a candle, we
pour water on the ground, wewhisper to the wind.
We remember you.
You are not forgotten.
Say their names if you knowthem, speak love to those you
don't, because remembrance is aform of resurrection and silence
(17:01):
has never protected us For theones buried beneath us, to the
enslaved still beneathplantations, to the displaced of
the gas plant district, toevery soul who was paved over,
zoned out, bulldozed and erased.
We see you, we feel you.
We will not profit from yourpain.
We will build with yourpermission.
(17:22):
Say aloud your life mattered.
Your death is not the end.
Your story will be told.
If you feel heaviness in yourchest right now, you are not
broken.
You are remembering.
Your spirit is responding tothe vibration of truth, and that
means you are awake.
A small ritual for the living Ifyou have white flowers, offer
(17:45):
one to the earth.
If you have clean water, pour afew drops in the name of those
who drowned without dignity.
If you have a moment of silence, make it sacred, not empty,
intentional.
And if you are grieving forthis or for anything Intentional
(18:15):
, are sacred.
When the sun went down, thespirit stood up.
There was a time when Blackfamilies were warned don't be
here after dark.
That wasn't just a suggestion.
It was a threat wrapped inSouthern charm and backed by
Southern violence.
Sundown towns weren't justplaces on a map.
They were living, grave sitesof silence.
(18:35):
They taught generations ofBlack children to shrink their
light before dusk, to disappear,to make themselves small enough
to survive.
But what those towns neverunderstood was this Just because
we vanished from view doesn'tmean we disappeared from the
earth.
Our people didn't fade.
We became whispers, we becamewatchers, we became the wind
(18:59):
waiting for the right moment toreturn.
And now that moment is here.
What we are seeing across thisnation isn't just climate.
It's correction, it's the earthremembering, it's the ancestors
stirring.
The floodwaters in Texas didn'tjust rise.
They tore through counties thatonce forced Black families out.
(19:23):
The fire that consumed theNottoway Plantation didn't just
burn a building.
It ignited a legacy built onthe backs of the enslaved.
When Hurricane Milton rippedthe roof off Tropicana Field, a
stadium built over the erasureof Tampa's black gas plant
district, it was more than wind.
It was a wound opening arupture in the lie that these
(19:46):
places were ever built on cleanground.
The past was never buried, itwas only waiting.
Let's be clear this is not chaos, this is alignment.
This is the consequence ofcenturies of ignored blood,
hidden graves and silent stories.
This is what happens when thespiritual debt becomes too heavy
to hold.
You cannot build plantations onstolen labor, destroy black
(20:10):
communities for profit and paveover sacred burial sites without
consequence.
You cannot expect peace whenthe very foundations of your
prosperity are built on pain.
The water will rise, the firewill come, the wind will strip
false legacies from the rooftopsof privilege, and none of it is
accidental.
(20:31):
This isn't about revenge.
It's about restoration.
Our ancestors are not angry.
They are awake.
They are reclaiming what wasstolen.
They are reminding the worldthat nothing buried stays buried
forever.
And we, their descendants, feelthat awakening in our bones.
It's not just in the news, it'sin our dreams, in our grief, in
(20:54):
the way the air feels heavierwhen we speak their names aloud.
We are not victims in thismoment.
We are vessels.
We are not victims in thismoment.
We are vessels.
We are the living embodiment ofunfinished stories.
We are what happens when thebloodline refuses to die in
silence.
The time of the sun downtown isover.
The real darkness now belongsto us, not the kind you run from
(21:17):
, but the kind that heals, thatrestores, that remembers.
We are not waiting to beinvited to the table anymore.
We are building altars with thebones they tried to hide.
We are not asking permission totell the truth.
We are flooding the silencewith memory, with testimony,
(21:37):
with power, and we are no longerafraid of the night, because
when the sun goes down again, itwon't be fear that rises, it
will be us sacred close for thespirits, the survivors and the
seed bearers.
We've walked through fire,flood and buried memory.
Today and now we close, not insorrow but in sacred remembrance
(22:00):
, to the spirits who rose in thefloodwaters, in the fires, in
the winds.
We see you, we honor you, wecall your names, even when we
don't know them, because yourexistence mattered and your
transition shook this world intoremembrance.
You're not forgotten, you'renot gone.
You are guiding us now, notfrom beneath the soil, but from
(22:23):
beside us, within us, to thesurvivors still mourning, still
rebuilding, still searching forpeace in the middle of shattered
routines.
This space holds you.
Your grief is holy, your painis valid and even if no one else
gives you the time or room toprocess what's been lost, you
have permission here.
(22:43):
Breathe, cry, pray, scream, bestill.
Whatever your spirit needs,take it, because healing is not
a straight line, it's a spiral,and it takes what it takes To
those who feel the stirrings inyour bones, those of you who
know this episode wasn't justeducation, but initiation.
(23:04):
Let me speak directly to you now.
You are a seed bearer.
You carry truth that this worldtried to bury.
You're the voice your ancestorsdreamed would one day speak
without fear.
You are the storm wrapped inskin, the reckoning in human
form, the living altar walkingthrough a world desperate to
forget.
Protect that role, honor thatcalling, move with clarity and
(23:28):
courage.
And remember not every battleneeds a blade.
Sometimes your presence in aplace where your people were
once exiled is a revolution.
Sometimes your prayer in publicis a protest.
Sometimes just surviving withyour spirit intact is the
resistance they never plannedfor.
I say to the waters thatcleansed and carried, I say to
(23:51):
the flames that purified.
I say to the winds thatrevealed what was hidden.
I say to the bones that won'tstay buried.
I say to the living who refuseto forget.
And as you return to your day,your work, your world, don't
rush to shake this off.
Let it linger, let it changehow you walk, how you speak, how
(24:13):
you remember, because once youknow the land is alive, once you
feel the spirit stirring, youcan never pretend to sleep again
.
Thank you for listening to LifePoints with Rhonda.
May you walk in truth, may youstand in legacy and may your
spirit never bow to silenceUntil next time, with love, with
(24:33):
fire and with the full weightof memory behind me.
This is Rhonda.
Thank you, so, thank you you.
Something ancient moved through Texas that day Not
just water, not just weather,but grief.
Grief so vast it swallowedcabins, camps and families.
Whole.
Over a hundred lives lostChildren, elders, mothers, sons.
And somewhere in the stillnessafter the flood, silence turned
(00:22):
sacred.
This wasn't just a naturaldisaster.
This was a collectiveheartbreak, a reckoning, a
reminder that no one, no mattertheir race, background or belief
, is immune to tragedy.
But when that tragedy strikeson soil soaked with a history of
racial exclusion and silence,the echoes of the past come
(00:43):
crashing into the present.
And today we listen.
If you feel this episodealready speaking to something in
your spirit, pause for a momentand tap that like button.
It helps this truth reach morepeople who need to hear it and
lets the algorithm know we'redone being silent Trigger
warning.
(01:04):
This episode contains sensitivediscussion surrounding loss of
life, racial trauma, historicalinjustice and natural disaster.
Listener, discretion is advised, especially for those
personally affected by recentevents in Texas or anyone
navigating grief, grief andtrauma.
We hold space for you here.
(01:25):
Before we begin, I want topause and speak directly to the
families and communitiesdevastated by the recent floods
in Texas, to the mothers wholost children, to the children
who lost parents, to the friendsstill waiting for word, to the
survivors carrying unimaginablegrief.
My heart is with you, myprayers are with you, my spirit
(01:49):
stands beside you.
We mourn not only the liveslost but the futures that were
taken too soon.
May those who perished beremembered with love.
May those still missing findpeace or return home, and may
those who survived find strengthin the arms of their community
and healing in time.
This episode is not just abouthistory.
(02:11):
It's about humanity, and I willtell this story with the
reverence it deserves.
The night the water rose, it wassupposed to be a night of
celebration, fireworks, familybarbecue by the river, but on
July 4th 2025, the sky had otherplans.
The rain didn't trickle, itpoured, pounding the Texas hill
(02:33):
country with relentless force.
In the dead of night, whilemost were asleep, the Guadalupe
River swelled with unnaturalspeed.
What was once a peacefulcurrent surged into a monstrous
wall of water, rising over 27feet in just under an hour in
some areas.
By the time the sun came up onJuly 5th, it was too late.
(02:53):
More than 130 people, many ofthem children, were gone.
Entire families were swept away, homes obliterated, bodies
missing, and all of it happeningin the same counties where the
land had for generationswhispered warnings no one ever
fully heard.
One of the worst tragediesstruck Camp Mystic in Kerr
(03:15):
County, a place with a longstoried history, nestled along
the river's edge.
Parents sent their daughtersthere for spiritual enrichment,
sisterhood and summer joy, butthat night 27 souls from that
camp never made it home.
Many are asking why weren't theflood alerts sent out earlier?
Why didn't Camp Mystic evacuatewhen the warnings came in?
(03:36):
Why were there no sirens?
And why did the very systemsmeant to protect falter in their
hour of need?
This wasn't just a naturaldisaster.
It was a compounded failure ofcommunication, preparation and
response, with human lives asthe cost.
And while no one can controlthe rain, we have to ask who's
(03:58):
responsible for the silence andwhat stories were washed away
before we ever got to hear them.
Where the waters met history,there's something about land
that remembers, even when peopletry to forget.
Kerr and Kendall counties arenestled in what's often called
the peaceful hill country ofTexas.
But peace, like silence, can bedeceptive.
These counties weren't built oninnocence.
(04:20):
They were shaped by power,exclusion and quiet codes of who
belonged and who didn't.
Let's be clear Slavery existedhere, not on the scale of the
Deep South or East Texasplantations, but it was here in
the form of domestic labor,forced farm work and unpaid
(04:41):
servitude.
Human lives cataloged asproperty.
Black hands clearing, brush,cooking meals and unpaid
servitude.
Human lives cataloged asproperty.
Black hands clearing, brush,cooking meals and raising
children who would grow up tocall them.
Less than when the Civil Warended, these counties didn't
throw open their doors.
They closed them tighter, andout of that closeness grew
something much darker thesundown town era.
(05:03):
Sundown towns weren't alwaysmarked by signs.
Sometimes the signs were thesilence, a look, a warning, a
story passed quietly.
Don't get caught here afterdark.
Caraville, bourne, hunt thesetowns might not appear in every
textbook about racial terror,but for Black families, they
(05:24):
carried an unspoken truth.
You were not welcome to livehere, and you were definitely
not welcome to stay past sunset.
There were no Black churches,no historically Black
neighborhoods, no celebrationsof Juneteenth, just invisible
lines.
And when you crossed them, youdid so at your own risk.
And so, generation aftergeneration, black families left
(05:48):
or avoided these placesaltogether, not because they
didn't love the land, butbecause the land and the people
on it refused to love them back.
Even now, in 2025, census datareveals the residue of that
exclusion.
In Kerr County, less than 2% ofthe population is Black.
In Kendall even less so.
(06:09):
When this flood came crashingthrough these counties, through
these historically exclusivetowns, some of us felt something
stirring.
Beneath the headlines, itwasn't joy, it was recognition,
an eerie awareness that thewaters didn't just flood a river
.
They flooded a history that hadlong been buried the legacy of
Camp Mystic.
Camp Mystic wasn't just asummer camp.
(06:32):
It was and still is a symbol, asymbol of legacy, lineage and
exclusive belonging.
Founded in 1927, camp Mystic hasoperated for nearly a century
as an elite Christian all-girlscamp in Hunt, texas, located on
a prized bend of the GuadalupeRiver.
Generation after generation ofwealthy white Southern families
(06:56):
sent their daughters here, notjust for campfires and canoe
races but to be molded into thekind of womanhood that would
continue to uphold the samesystems of privilege that built
this region.
But what most people don't sayout loud is this Camp Mystic was
never built for everyone.
It was built for a veryspecific kind of child, white,
(07:17):
affluent and well-connected.
Its website may speak ofsisterhood, tradition and
spiritual growth, but fordecades the deeper, unspoken
truth remained Black and browngirls were never truly invited
in, not as campers, not asleaders and certainly not as
equals.
The staff, often brown-skinnedwomen, hired to cook, clean or
(07:39):
assist in silence the campers,daughters of oil, executives,
state legislators and legacyTexas wealth.
The environment, policed,restricted, curated.
This wasn't inclusion, this wasinsulation.
And all of it profitable.
Camp Mystic has made millionsover the years through
(07:59):
registration fees, privatedonations and tax-exempt
religious status.
Some sources estimate annualrevenues exceeding $4 million,
with parents paying up to $6,000per child for a few weeks of
sacred sisterhood.
That money flows in, butaccountability Not so much.
(08:22):
Let's talk about what happenedon the night of the flood.
At 1.14 am, the NationalWeather Service issued a flash
flood emergency.
Not so much.
Let's talk about what happenedon the night of the flood.
At 1.14 am, the NationalWeather Service issued a flash
flood emergency.
By 1.30 am, the water wasalready rising at a rate no
human could outrun.
Yet reports show that CampMystic did not immediately
evacuate its campers.
The reason, according todirectors, they were monitoring
(08:42):
the situation and they were notable to evacuate the campers,
and relying on walkie-talkiesinstead of mobile alerts because
campers weren't allowed to havephones.
Some might call that tradition,but in a crisis it became a
trap by the time the alarmsreached full urgency cabins were
already flooding.
Girls were pulled from theirbeds in the dark, rushing
through mud, chaos and water.
(09:03):
27 lives gone, including thecamp's co-owner and director,
dick Eastland, who had runMystic for decades with his wife
and business partner.
His death was confirmed, butquestions about their
decision-making, disasterpreparedness and moral
accountability remain.
And now grieving parents,mostly white, affluent and
(09:29):
politically connected, aredemanding answers.
They are asking how this couldhappen in a place so steeped in
wealth, prayer and tradition.
But here's a hard truthProtection is often assumed when
privilege is present.
Camp Mystic was never builtwith the expectation that
catastrophe could reach them.
Mystic was never built with theexpectation that catastrophe
(09:50):
could reach them.
Meanwhile, so many of us, thosewho grew up outside the gates,
have always known that disasterdoesn't discriminate, but
neglect does.
And now the very river thatframed their legacy has
rewritten it.
The river remembers whenancestral energy moves.
There are moments in life whenthe physical and the spiritual
collide, moments that shake usnot just in body but in soul.
(10:16):
The floods in Texas weren't justmeteorological events.
They were ancestral reminders,they were energetic ruptures and
for those of us with spiritsight, we felt it.
The Guadalupe River has flowedfor centuries through Comanche
land, through slave-walked soil,through Jim Crow towns and
whispered threats after dark.
That water has seen things.
It has heard cries, coveredfootprints and held secrets no
(10:38):
history book will ever print.
So when the rain came and theriver rose in fury, some of us
didn't just see water.
We saw memory.
We saw the bloodlines that werecut short by exclusion.
We felt the pain of those whowere pushed out of these towns
with nowhere to run.
We heard the voices of theenslaved, of the disappeared, of
(10:59):
the invisible, and, most of all, we heard the ancestors
stirring.
See, this wasn't about vengeance.
This was about recognition,about a spiritual ledger that
has long been out of balance.
And when balance is denied longenough, nature answers.
When communities buildprivilege atop pain, when they
profit from stolen silence, whenhistory is whitewashed and
(11:22):
black grief is erased, the earthremembers, the water remembers,
the spirits remember.
And so this flood didn't justtake lives, it took illusions.
It ripped open the facade ofsafety, wealth and invincibility
(11:57):
that institutions like CampMystic were built upon.
It said We'll be right back.
Coincidences don't echo thisloud.
When disaster speaks In fire,wind and water, there's
something happening beneath ourfeet and it's no longer subtle.
It's loud, it's spiritual andit's tired of being ignored.
(12:19):
We are witnessing more thandisaster.
We are witnessing a reckoning.
Let's start with what's beenburning the plantation fires.
Ashes that speak.
In Louisiana, the NottowayPlantation, the largest
remaining antebellum mansion inthe South, once romanticized as
the White Castle, went up inflames.
(12:41):
That same plantation was builtby the of 155 enslaved people,
their blood woven into everybrick, their bones buried
beneath the soil thatgenerations danced upon in
ignorance.
People held weddings there,they drank mint juleps on
(13:02):
balconies built by humansuffering.
They turned trauma into tourism.
And now it's gone.
Fire claimed it, and maybe,just maybe, it wasn't just
faulty wiring, because the landknows and sometimes the land
(13:22):
returns what it's been forced tohold.
Florida's forgotten dead.
The gas plant lies beneath,right here in Tampa Bay, where I
live.
Another message came, this timeby wind.
On October 9th 2024, hurricaneMilton roared across Florida
with rage, tearing throughinfrastructure, uprooting the
(13:43):
false security of concrete andsteel, and when it hit Tropicana
Field, that massive stadiumbuilt to host sports and
generate millions, the stormripped its dome wide open like
it was paper.
But here's the part peopledon't want to talk about.
That stadium was built over asacred crime scene.
The gas plant district was oncea thriving Black neighborhood.
(14:05):
Families, churches, smallbusinesses, culture, and, like
so many places in America, itwas stolen, bulldozed, buried,
not just physically butspiritually.
Beneath Tropicana Field lie theunmarked graves of Black men,
women and children, displacedand discarded.
(14:26):
For the sake of progress, thecity paved over our dead and
called it development.
So when Milton came and thestadium peeled open like a wound
, I didn't just see weather, Isaw a warning.
You can't build empires on bonesand expect peace.
You can't erase generations andexpect silence.
You can't bury the truth andexpect the storm to spare you.
(14:48):
Ancestral unrest is real Acrossthe South.
Plantations have burned,churches once built by enslaved
people have been struck bylightning.
Towns built on black erasurehave seen sinkholes open,
floodwaters rise and wind peelback every illusion of control.
People call it coincidence, butour spirits know better.
(15:11):
This isn't just climate change,it's cosmic change.
It's the land reclaiming truth.
It's the ancestors saying weare not resting.
You may not hear their names onthe news, you may not find
their graves on a map, but theirenergy is in the storms, their
grief is in the wind, theirmemory is in the water.
(15:31):
And whether by fire, flood orforce.
They are speaking.
The only question now is will wefinally listen, spiritual
reflection, honoring the dead,awakening the living?
Take a breath.
This isn't just a podcastepisode.
This is a remembrance, areckoning, a ritual in real time
(15:53):
.
And if you've made it this far,I want you to pause, not just
with your ears but with yourheart, because the dead are
listening, the ones who builtthis country brick by brick,
breath by breath, who never gotheadstones, just unmarked fields
, who were drowned in rivers,whipped into silence, buried
beneath shopping malls andstadiums.
(16:14):
And now they are rising.
So what do we do when theancestors are restless?
They are rising.
So what do we do when theancestors are restless, when the
storms come not just from thesky but from spirit?
We honor them.
For the ones who were washedaway, to those lost in the
floods of Texas, to the childrenof Camp Mystic, to the parents
(16:36):
swept from their homes, to thenames we may never hear but
whose souls were claimed by theriver, we light a candle, we
pour water on the ground, wewhisper to the wind.
We remember you.
You are not forgotten.
Say their names if you knowthem, speak love to those you
don't, because remembrance is aform of resurrection and silence
(17:01):
has never protected us For theones buried beneath us, to the
enslaved still beneathplantations, to the displaced of
the gas plant district, toevery soul who was paved over,
zoned out, bulldozed and erased.
We see you, we feel you.
We will not profit from yourpain.
We will build with yourpermission.
(17:22):
Say aloud your life mattered.
Your death is not the end.
Your story will be told.
If you feel heaviness in yourchest right now, you are not
broken.
You are remembering.
Your spirit is responding tothe vibration of truth, and that
means you are awake.
A small ritual for the living Ifyou have white flowers, offer
(17:45):
one to the earth.
If you have clean water, pour afew drops in the name of those
who drowned without dignity.
If you have a moment of silence, make it sacred, not empty,
intentional.
And if you are grieving forthis or for anything Intentional
(18:15):
, are sacred.
When the sun went down, thespirit stood up.
There was a time when Blackfamilies were warned don't be
here after dark.
That wasn't just a suggestion.
It was a threat wrapped inSouthern charm and backed by
Southern violence.
Sundown towns weren't justplaces on a map.
They were living, grave sitesof silence.
(18:35):
They taught generations ofBlack children to shrink their
light before dusk, to disappear,to make themselves small enough
to survive.
But what those towns neverunderstood was this Just because
we vanished from view doesn'tmean we disappeared from the
earth.
Our people didn't fade.
We became whispers, we becamewatchers, we became the wind
(18:59):
waiting for the right moment toreturn.
And now that moment is here.
What we are seeing across thisnation isn't just climate.
It's correction, it's the earthremembering, it's the ancestors
stirring.
The floodwaters in Texas didn'tjust rise.
They tore through counties thatonce forced Black families out.
(19:23):
The fire that consumed theNottoway Plantation didn't just
burn a building.
It ignited a legacy built onthe backs of the enslaved.
When Hurricane Milton rippedthe roof off Tropicana Field, a
stadium built over the erasureof Tampa's black gas plant
district, it was more than wind.
It was a wound opening arupture in the lie that these
(19:46):
places were ever built on cleanground.
The past was never buried, itwas only waiting.
Let's be clear this is not chaos, this is alignment.
This is the consequence ofcenturies of ignored blood,
hidden graves and silent stories.
This is what happens when thespiritual debt becomes too heavy
to hold.
You cannot build plantations onstolen labor, destroy black
(20:10):
communities for profit and paveover sacred burial sites without
consequence.
You cannot expect peace whenthe very foundations of your
prosperity are built on pain.
The water will rise, the firewill come, the wind will strip
false legacies from the rooftopsof privilege, and none of it is
accidental.
(20:31):
This isn't about revenge.
It's about restoration.
Our ancestors are not angry.
They are awake.
They are reclaiming what wasstolen.
They are reminding the worldthat nothing buried stays buried
forever.
And we, their descendants, feelthat awakening in our bones.
It's not just in the news, it'sin our dreams, in our grief, in
(20:54):
the way the air feels heavierwhen we speak their names aloud.
We are not victims in thismoment.
We are vessels.
We are not victims in thismoment.
We are vessels.
We are the living embodiment ofunfinished stories.
We are what happens when thebloodline refuses to die in
silence.
The time of the sun downtown isover.
The real darkness now belongsto us, not the kind you run from
(21:17):
, but the kind that heals, thatrestores, that remembers.
We are not waiting to beinvited to the table anymore.
We are building altars with thebones they tried to hide.
We are not asking permission totell the truth.
We are flooding the silencewith memory, with testimony,
(21:37):
with power, and we are no longerafraid of the night, because
when the sun goes down again, itwon't be fear that rises, it
will be us sacred close for thespirits, the survivors and the
seed bearers.
We've walked through fire,flood and buried memory.
Today and now we close, not insorrow but in sacred remembrance
(22:00):
, to the spirits who rose in thefloodwaters, in the fires, in
the winds.
We see you, we honor you, wecall your names, even when we
don't know them, because yourexistence mattered and your
transition shook this world intoremembrance.
You're not forgotten, you'renot gone.
You are guiding us now, notfrom beneath the soil, but from
(22:23):
beside us, within us, to thesurvivors still mourning, still
rebuilding, still searching forpeace in the middle of shattered
routines.
This space holds you.
Your grief is holy, your painis valid and even if no one else
gives you the time or room toprocess what's been lost, you
have permission here.
(22:43):
Breathe, cry, pray, scream, bestill.
Whatever your spirit needs,take it, because healing is not
a straight line, it's a spiral,and it takes what it takes To
those who feel the stirrings inyour bones, those of you who
know this episode wasn't justeducation, but initiation.
(23:04):
Let me speak directly to you now.
You are a seed bearer.
You carry truth that this worldtried to bury.
You're the voice your ancestorsdreamed would one day speak
without fear.
You are the storm wrapped inskin, the reckoning in human
form, the living altar walkingthrough a world desperate to
forget.
Protect that role, honor thatcalling, move with clarity and
(23:28):
courage.
And remember not every battleneeds a blade.
Sometimes your presence in aplace where your people were
once exiled is a revolution.
Sometimes your prayer in publicis a protest.
Sometimes just surviving withyour spirit intact is the
resistance they never plannedfor.
I say to the waters thatcleansed and carried, I say to
(23:51):
the flames that purified.
I say to the winds thatrevealed what was hidden.
I say to the bones that won'tstay buried.
I say to the living who refuseto forget.
And as you return to your day,your work, your world, don't
rush to shake this off.
Let it linger, let it changehow you walk, how you speak, how
(24:13):
you remember, because once youknow the land is alive, once you
feel the spirit stirring, youcan never pretend to sleep again
.
Thank you for listening to LifePoints with Rhonda.
May you walk in truth, may youstand in legacy and may your
spirit never bow to silenceUntil next time, with love, with
(24:33):
fire and with the full weightof memory behind me.
This is Rhonda.
Thank you, so, thank you you.
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