On Wind
Just like our minds: invisible and powerful.
Alicia always said that storms were not only necessary but also wonderful. After eighty seven years of resilience, she insisted we underestimate the importance of wind, the need for storms, because we fail to appreciate their job when the world become still again and suddenly we can recognise a new clear landscape.
The proverbial “after the storm” made absolute sense when she explained how chaos brings new appreciation of peace and made me reflect once more on how we have grown used to our perpetual storm of thoughts, failing to end it, failing to create intentional stillness within ourselves.
We recently had one of those windstorms that we expected to happen elsewhere. The Caribbean perhaps. Instead of palm trees bending violently, we saw fallen ancient trees exposing their defeated roots. We did’t want to look; that occult connection between earth and tree, suddenly and forever disrupted was heartbreaking.
We didn’t use to be part of the collective naming and waiting for storms like unwanted guests, but I am sure we became used to the chaos of the mind. Our mental storm brings about emotions, fears and thoughts on daily basis. We are rarely present, we don’t use the storm to our advantage but are drained by the contradictions we build between our physical engagement in one action while our thoughts and feelings disperse in separate directions. Just like the chaotic storm that lifts and spins objects in the air.
We don’t seem to evoke stillness even though we recognise its beauty whenever we experience it.Unaware, we adopt the permanent chaos like a never ending storm. We respond to it. Take a walk in any big city, navigate it for a few minutes: you are immediately dragged into a world of subtle anxieties playing together in your mind. The outside chaos becomes your inside chaos and your mind takes over and plays the endless game of association between your past and your future.
Then you begin to consume: the advertisement on the side of the bus shows someone with a satisfying smile, holding a drink: that’s what you need. A spring scene with a happy couple shows the logo of an over the counter medicine: you may not want the medicine but you certainly want that joy. The shop window evokes the fun of a holiday in an artificial wilderness of plastic props, the luxury of a brand new sports car speaks of a stressless, successful life. All kinds of material wealth portrayed in different scenarios, everything telling the mind to reach peace and joy by consuming, acquiring, possessing.
But the only thing we consume and possess is the chaos. We don’t get to the end of the storm, we don’t reach the beauty of that stillness after the wind swiped away the debris.
In ancient times wind and air were associated with the mind, the intellect and communication. A natural association since we hear voices and noises travelling in the air, our thoughts have no shape, our minds are invisible. The mind, like the wind, can produce palpable results transporting seeds or destroying shelters. To grow or destroy are just as feasible.
When the wind stops, the air is clear; when the mind moves from chaos to stillness, it doesn’t stop existing. It just gives
way to peace.
Whenever a gust of wind comes your way, reflect on what your mind can potentially cleanse right there. Then give yourself permission to arrive at the stillness that should naturally follow. Be the storm when you need to be the storm, but don’t shy away from adopting stillness.
