When A Strong Wind Blows...
How do you dance with the storm?
Do you ever feel you are supposed to be doing “important” things to fulfill your mission and that everything else might be a waste of time?
This worldview often blinds us to the signs and symbols available in life's “simple” tasks that lead to greater awareness of who and why we are.
I had one of those awareness moments when I chose to work in the garden, even though I thought I had more important things to do.
But I heard that little voice that said, ”Go work in the garden before the storm comes,” so I obeyed.
After all these years of shifting, I finally accept that one of the first rules of awareness is not to question that voice but to obey it, no matter how slightly off track it seems or how much I don’t want to follow it.
Of course, we all have to know which voice is speaking, but that’s another story.
That day, I knew it was the still, small voice leading to awareness, so off I went with my gloves and clippers.
However, I still carried into the garden the slightly guilty and worried feeling that I had a book to write and was now “wasting” time in the garden! I silenced the quilt and went to work.
We had two big clumps of beautiful grass in front of the house. They were so big that they fell over into everything and split themselves down the middle whenever it rained.
To support them standing upright, I placed simple plant stakes around the clumps, pulling them together to weather the coming storm better.
As I looped the string from stake to stake, I noticed that they formed a strong unit that held the grass in a protective circle as I hooked them together. The stakes by themselves were almost useless and quickly snapped. But each time I caught the string to the next stake, the bond grew stronger and stronger.
It was the perfect symbol of the value of banding together to protect each other no matter how intense the storm.
Without the support I was setting up for it, the plant would have been weakened and beaten into the ground.
The protective circle reminded me of what Rolling Thunder said:
“There are ways to protect oneself. One of the best ways to start is to surround yourself with true friends and brothers and sisters. Everyone in this life needs help all the time. Standing alone is very hard.”
The storm came. It didn’t bring rain as expected, but instead a mighty wind.
I sat on our porch and watched the trees just feet from our house bend and sway in the wind. Calming my fear of them falling, I noticed how much they could bend and not be hurt.
Their roots, buried deep into the ground, after years of going deeper and deeper and wider and wider, gave them a firm and unyielding base upon which to stand.
And stand they did, not straight and brittle but bending, yielding, and letting the wind go by.
They reminded me of the stakes around the plant because they circled our house, buffeting it from the wind.
As protectors, they were not afraid but instead danced with the storm.
The morning after the storm, the lawn was littered with leaves and dead twigs, but the trees and my protected grasses had stood firm.
Within the “mundane” activity of gardening, I had noticed the value of standing together, protecting each other, and putting our roots down deep and wide.
I witnessed the immense power of being so grounded and rooted that we can bend and sway without harm, no matter how intense the storm.
Once again, I was reminded that the most profound lessons are often learned in the simplest activities.
So when the still small voice calls you, listen.
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