Stormy Weather Meditations
September 5, 2004
Inspired by Hurricane Frances, I’ve been thinking about storms and storminess. About what happens to people when elemental forces of uncontrolled chaos threaten our stability. How we collectively enact the primal urges that drive us deeper inside of our caves and to one another. Perhaps storms are one of Mother Nature’s blessings.
Storms are usually exciting events. We watch their progression on television as other people’s homes and property are destroyed. We shake our heads in wonder, sending silent prayers in thought-forms to those hunkered down in shelters and wondering what they will find outside when the winds and floods subside. We watch so closely because we know it could just as easily be happening to us.
When we get too comfortable a storm comes along to remind us that our human condition is transitory. We are not unlike the banyan trees in Florida, seemingly solid, with trunks squat and wide. All it takes to uproot a banyan tree is a strong and sustained wind because its roots are not so deep, after all. Its appearance of solidity is but an illusion.
Human beings are like that, too. In storms, forces greater than our comprehension undermine our footing, tossing us not-so-gently into the maelstrom. And where we fall depends on good luck and the Fates.
Thanks to storms, whether we are the watchers or the victims, we are reminded of our vulnerability, grateful for the simple blessings of food, water, and shelter from the wind and rain. And of staying alive to tell the tale. Such experiences quicken the blood, and kick us out of the comfort zone where we usually reside, grumpy and complaining. Storms remind us it could be worse.
Last night, after watching the Weather Channel’s coverage of Hurricane Frances, decided to give thanks for my humble abode. I unpacked my white aromatherapy chimney and placed it on my coffee table. Next, I put a drop a Frankincense Oil in the well and lit the candle inside. In the darkness, the yellow flame of the tea light hearth fire was perfect comfort. I was grateful. For being dry and warm. For having shelter. I whispered a prayer of thanks to Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth. May She watch over me, always.
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February 17, 2008.
Ironically, four years on, I find myself living inside the eye of a hurricane. On a mad whim, I gave up my own tiny but cozy city apartment to share a large, condo in the country.
At the time, I felt like a northerner who thinks he is moving to a tropical island, an imagined paradise, where the song of swaying palms and the vision of gushing ocean is a daily delight.
With the foolishness of a first-time navigator, I sailed my ship into the strange waters of this place. What I found was a savage, unmanageable beauty. Its uniqueness was the quality that enticed me to stay, to try and make my home, and to see it through.
That was my adventurer self, huge with ego and optimism. Now, I am wiser. I no longer accept the idyllic notion that country life is better than city life. Certainly, it is quieter, brighter, and smells better. However, country life is deceptively calm.
Indeed, stormy weather causes more damage in the exposed expanses of the country than in the city, with the close protection of its teeming streets. One quickly learns that there are brutal storms, even in paradise. Storms so strong they tear down the flimsy structures you erect to house your life and your purpose.
Out here, the wind is corrosive. It blows a microscopically fine dust that swirls around me, perpetually stinging my eyes, clouding my vision of the future. The dust’s persistence has flailed and finally eroded the fragile structure of life here, scouring away the romantic fixations I once held about this place.
More destructive than the peppering winds are the waves they churn up, that arrive as enormous walls of foaming water. They drag me down to the briny depths where I choke on the rushing sea that billows and buckles on the whim of the winds.
Do you understand that living inside of a hurricane is an unpredictable, often furious, existence? In the nightmare shadow of her dervish presence, ones world is reduced to the size and confines of a lifeboat, a tiny craft which might capsize at any moment when the eye-wall tightens, or shifts position.
I am a weary survivor, tossed in the wake of an unrelenting tempest. If only I had seen this storm coming. Had understood that relationships like this cannot last. Looking back on the peaceful shores of my former life, I realize how much I’ve risked, and how much I’ve lost. But regret is an absurd luxury when living in the eye-wall of a hurricane. All you think about is how to survive the night.
Storms provide a hard lesson, a potent dose of reality. You are forced to decide what is worth keeping, and what must be left behind. In stormy weather, you are forced to make vital choices. You must shed the baggage that might, literally, cause you to drown. In the end, if you carry only the deep, solid essence of who you are, you have a chance.
Escaping the storm is not as easy as it seems. There is fear in the journey, in not knowing its outcome. Beyond the raging winds and swirling waters in which I exist, I imagine the familiar shores of my former life. Is it possible to make it out alive?
Funny how I used to love stormy weather. Perhaps, one day, I will again.
Edited: Morgan Wolf, 25 February 2008
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