Every so often nature reminds us that life doesn't necessarily revolve around the preoccupations of people, wherever we are and whatever we are doing.

Usually, we are all caught up in what's going on at our particular places and how we get to make our way along the various paths crossing at our feet and/or in our faces.

It usually takes some kind of natural disaster, like a drought or flood, to impress itself on us and our assorted collections of realities.

Natural disasters never take into account the barriers and borders that people set up – for instance, local government boundaries, amalgamated or not!

At our place on the side of Noosa Hill, the local floods were flagged by a flock of refugee rainbow lorikeets who sheltered anywhere under our verandah canvas and the eaves above our kitchen and bathroom for three days and nights.

Lots of other birds loitered close by to be fed when the rain abated. The pair of possum regulars disappeared for more than a week, but returned for a fruity feed two nights ago.

It is especially revealing of the character of people when our human affairs are overwhelmed by events that are somewhat larger than all those commitments that clutter our diaries and calendars.

The heavy rain that hit the Coast just over a week ago resulted in floods inundating many homes and businesses, cutting off bridges and roads, shutting down ferry services, and generally disrupting or delaying many of our plans and routines.

Yet someone complained to me that none of the free gas barbecues in foreshore parklands along Noosa River were working last weekend.

That someone was not at all interested when I said that the area had been deluged by hundreds of millimeters of rain and that Noosa Council had higher priorities at present, such as a shire-wide emergency, evacuations, and responding to damaged infrastructure and property.

All that mattered to this person was having their precious picnic and finding someone to blame when it didn't go according to their own plan. It's hard to be sympathetic to someone so riled at being inconvenienced when many others have had floodwaters flowing through their homes and businesses.

However, most visitors to the area were much more understanding of the situation, despite delayed traffic, diverted flights, cancelled events and closed services, as well as the turbulent winds and the torrential rain.

Most people adjust sooner or later, and just get on with it. More importantly, most people are willing to join together and pitch in when the community is in the throes of a natural disaster.

Nature presented us with a deluge and we got very wet indeed, whether we wanted to or not.

We imagine that we are being punished by nature one way or another for our sins as a species, when really it's just nature, doing what it always has and always will, by being itself.

That's why the sky-high spectacle of a total lunar eclipse is so appealing in an inexplicable way. Such an astronomical event reminds us that this world we all live in is still moving in space and time, no matter who we think we are, what we tell ourselves we are doing, or why we're up to all that we suppose we are.

We're still living in the natural world, even though the so-called styles of our 21st-century lives are often anything but natural, let alone logical. Life is the ongoing result of all that's deposited us here!