Heading Into the Wind

Maybe I'll meet the spirit halfway; maybe we all will.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours, 

May the clarity of light be yours, 

May the fluency of the ocean be yours, 

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow 

Wind work these words 

Of love around you, 

An invisible cloak 

To mind your life.

— John O’Donohue, from the poem Beannacht (Blessing)

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I wanted to see the snow on the beach, longed to see the whitecaps out on the bay, hoped for a sparkling photo of this brilliant, frigid day.

I was adamant. I would not leave town, leave Delaware, without walking on that sand – a stone’s throw from my grandmother Honey’s old house with the wrap-around screened porch, the place my father brought my mother when he was courting her. Next to it the tiny cottage my great aunt Celia lived in when I was a little girl. Around the corner, a spec house my grandfather Donald built in 1939. All tucked behind the dunes, now capped with rhythmic drifts of snow.

Yet, when I stepped out of the car, mummy-wrapped in my mother’s stiff old parka with the furry snap-on hood, the north wind lunged at me like a startled ghost, passing through me, not around me. All in a matter of seconds, I felt as if I’d been microwaved by an Arctic blast, the kind of cold that burns as if you’ve touched the clustered crystals of frost that form on the inside of an old freezer.

My father and I had recently been talking about quantum mechanics, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the wind could be both particle and wave. Molecules of cold air could not have reached my inner core as quickly as they did, could they?

In the brief moment I had, I marveled at how the flock of seagulls landing in the sand in front of me braced against the wind, likely preparing to sail on a beam reach to the Dairy Queen dumpster across the public beach parking lot.

I felt myself move towards the sand fence, edging closer to the shoreline, but the wind held the upper hand, firing smoky clouds of snow off the tops of dunes and into my face. One burst, then another, and another.

In an instant, I was back in the car, chagrined that I couldn’t at least have a conversation with the wind, a little give-and-take, a query about its intentions – whether it sought to penetrate my soul as well as my skin.

Yet here I was, strangely invigorated, vibrating with energy. Refreshed. The contrast of the warm air in the car surrounding my still-cold core made the lingering memory of the icy wind feel that much more like a spirit had passed through me.

Not for nothing do many wiser than me consider wind to be the embodiment of spirit – a messenger of change and rebirth, transformation and enlightenment. In Celtic spirituality, in the Hebrew Bible, in the Greek New Testament, in many Indigenous cultures, the words “spirit,” “wind,” and “breath” are interchangeable. There is a particular Irish wind, the Gaoth Sidhe, believed to carry the fairies’ messages from the Otherworld.

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Later at the dinner table, over rigatoni with andouille sausage and kale and garlicky white beans, my sister and husband shared their distaste for the wind. I could not bring myself to disparage it, because I am forever compelled to head into it, maybe hoping I’ll meet the spirit halfway and suddenly understand, by some kind of osmosis, the course I’m supposed to steer.

Yet there is a dark side to wind. I do know that, understand that. Wind doesn’t just transform or transport; it purges, too. For every gentle, soothing breeze, there is a harsh, desiccating one. There are twisters and tornados, mistrals and monsoon winds.

And we have no control over them.

It has felt so strange this week to be in this pocket of frigid air and deep snow while fire – hot, raging, destructive – spread through Southern California, fueled by the tinder of drought-ravaged land and fanned by the mighty Santa Ana winds. (The winds themselves are not the cause of the fires. Last winter, an unusually rainy season in Southern California produced excessive vegetation. A long drought and higher-than-normal temperatures, both related to climate change, turned this vegetation into dry kindling.)

Like everyone else, I keep imagining what it must be like for the thousands of people who have lost their homes and businesses, who must endure the after-effects of trauma and financial insecurity. And I also keep thinking about this: our fates could easily have been reversed. Likely they will be at some point, when “the big one” – a hurricane or some other colossal natural disaster arrives on the east coast.

We are all in this together; it is crazy to think any other way. We share the same planet. It seems to me we would all benefit from changing the way we interact with it. If we thought of the natural world as a communal backyard or the well we all drink from, maybe we wouldn’t treat it like a trash heap. Or an afterthought. Or something we can manipulate.

We can’t take what we want from nature without considering what it needs to flourish or how it works. The very essence of nature is balance and codependence. It gives us life and it also destroys – not willfully, but because it must in order to regenerate. We can’t keep damaging the environment and not expect repercussions.

The truth is that there is no rosy future for us that does not include our acceptance of our role in nature – not just as partners, but as true indwellers. We must recognize our interdependence and make decisions that are good for both us and for the earth.

We must join with it in spirit. Our alienation from nature is a spiritual crisis, I am certain. We must head straight into the wind, not run away from it.

What does that mean, practically speaking?

It begins by developing a personal relationship with the natural world in whatever way brings you joy and peace.

It could be as simple as hanging a hummingbird feeder or tacking up a bluebird house or planting a pollinator garden or letting your lawn grow wild.

It could mean climbing a tree, lying down in a pile of leaves or running your hands over a mound of grassy moss.

You could join the annual bird count in your area, start a collection of heart-shaped rocks, make a point of getting up to see the sunrise, go outside to look at the stars every night.

You might visit a city park every day and watch the pigeons preen and bask in the sun.

Walk without your headphones on, walk on a dirt trail, walk deep into the woods, sit down in those woods. Bring a journal or a drawing pad. Notice the changes. Notice all the millions of wild living things around you, notice the rich, peaty earth and the soft bed of pine straw beneath you, the canopy of leaves and branches and dappled sunlight above you. Listen. Not just to the quiet but to yourself.

Soon you will find yourself spending time outdoors every day, even in bad weather. There will be a place that you call yours, a particular spot you come to love and care about. You will see the changes in color and texture, meet the wildlife, know the terrain, experience the beauty again and again.

And you will feel different, changed. More grounded, yes, but wilder, too.

You will feel at home.🌿