Monday's Wind -

Monday late afternoon, I sat on the couch on our deck and watched a storm come in from the west. It brushed through the pines and juniper next door, and I could see the juniper breathing in and out as the wind brushed it, breath in, breath out, in and out. The greens changed as the tree swayed, it was gorgeous. 

As the trees in my backyard began to sway, and the flowers and grass began to move with the gusts, I thought about the storms I've sat through, or walked indoors to be protected from. There have certainly been a few, and I covered myself, let them pass over me, walked away from, yet seldom confronted. 

The wind was getting pretty strong - the wind chimes were playing as fast as they could, and the Alaskan Puffin's wings were flapping as if it was trying to get out of the storm.

I don't like the wind. 

I walked into the house, thinking the storm was getting too tough for me to be out in (and allergies - don't need anything to make them worse). Ten minutes later I decided I really wanted to be with the storm, ride with it, rather than fight it or retreat. 

I curled up on the couch, rain came down (just enough to calm the dust), and I watched the clouds move from west, to over my head, and then creep toward the east. 

The deck became my boat, the grass the ocean, and although I was safe from the wind and the rain, my stomach seized, as the storm raged around me, and my mantra became "go slow, stay calm." "Feel the storm."

About 90 minutes later the storm began to dissipate. I turned to the east and watched the evening sun touch the tips of the east mountain ridges, beacons of light. 

I sat up, walked through the backyard picking up a few branches, righting a few flowers that had blown over. 

And then I returned to the deck, the couch, and sat pondering this storm, that I had experienced, visually and physically. Three hours of sitting with the storm, staying in the storm, watching it happen and allowing it to happen to me.

I made it through the storm, made it - just as I have made it through all of the storms in my life, I certainly have been affected, but this one was different - I didn't walk inside, walk away, gripe, curse, pray, complain, ask someone to be with me, share the storm with anyone, or pull my coat tighter around me. I was in this storm by myself, and protected - by the deck, by the fenced in yard, by a higher power, by my own will to go through the storm. 

Stay Calm, Go Slow. Keep Breathing. The storm will pass. The storm has passed. Light is what's left. 

And then the storm was over, the sun was glowing, the mountains shining, and I knew, I knew, I knew, that I had made it through this storm, by going with the storm, and that my storms are "over." 

Interestingly, the Julian of Norwich saying has been on my mind these last several days, and on Monday, Tuesday, and this morning, I keep returning to as a type for the storm, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."