A Storm’s Magic
Does anyone else feel like they’ve recently quantum leaped onto a different timeline? There’s this feeling that nothing is the same, yet it’s all so familiar. A deepening is occurring. Emotions and connections are broadening and deepening with a vividness I haven’t experienced with such intensity since the end of last year.
My mind is trying to bring reason to it. “Oh, it’s because of this thing, that place, these people.” But what if it just is what it is and any explanation is irrelevant when it prevents me from fully experiencing it?
It’s sultry and mysterious. Not unlike the string of overcast days when I feel a storm building, yet have no idea of when or if rain will actually fall. When it begins to sprinkle my mind is quick to think, “ok, this is it. The big one we’ve been waiting for that will release the pressure building in our head and body. This is the one that will open the valve.” But then rain stops.
“Stop using your mind and tune into the body” they tell me.
The air is electric with ozone. The body somehow senses the distant groaning thunder too far for ears to detect. There’s a feeling of sinking. Not like that of melancholy, but also not not melancholy. It’s like reaching a depth only accessible when I let go and allow darkness to consume me. The paradox of liberating yourself from the heaviness of the extraneous is that you sink deeper to your core.
It’s as if those heavy things keep us anchored to the surface. Which reminds me of the direction of Grandmother Earth. The mature feminine who nurtures and grounds us. She pulls us into observing our own crustiness, to where we’re tethered into ordinary reality and the homogeneity with fears, compulsions and desires. Observing and transmuting these shadows breaks through our crust and leads us to our core, to our true self and higher self. To the person we incarnated as before all of the conditioning and expectations.
The air is swampy, thick with humidity. The sun peeks through the clouds and the electricity crescendos just before diffusing again.
In this humidity, though, scents are potent. The metallic, almost bleach-like wafts of ozone all around. The sweetness of sneezeweed and feverfew in front of the house. The bitter tanginess of the grasses. The musky ammonia from my dog’s business. It’s all so potent in the humid stagnancy of this late morning.
It’s all pulling me somewhere, yet the destination is unknown. It’s this perplexing feeling as if I’ve been on a side quest until recently. As if I’m back on the main road, the path of least resistance.
[a few hours later]
The storm is here and with it a message from the Thunder Gods. A pre-initiation cleansing, a baptism. Once something’s been removed, one must cleanse that space. Somethings coming in
“It’s electric”
If you think you know what’s coming your way, practice humility and open yourself wider. Allow for all of you to be cleansed and brought new life. There’s a sweetness in the air. Almost like cinnamon and butter. Not quite as sweet as French toast, though. A subtle sweet that you might miss if you allow distraction to take over.
“Follow nature’s lead. Some will cleanse themselves in this rain, some nourishing themselves before the storm intensifies, before rest and recalibration. Most, though, will force themselves in the opposite direction.”
Where is your inner compass guiding you? Is your mind contradicting that pull with a pressure to earn a moment of stillness? What excuses does the mind feed us to push us further from what the body needs to operate in synchronicity with the natural ebb and flow of the universe?
When I surrender to the darkness of the day, I see the vibrancy it births. Just as soon as I reach a deep gratitude for this state, the clouds begin to dissipate and the land brightens. Thunder remains but softens, and is accompanied by our ancestors through the songs of cardinals.
“Bring back the darkness, please,” says my mind, “bring back the electric stillness of sky meeting earth.”
Each moment I sink deeper, an awareness grows more vivid: my soul is in search of a particular experience. One that’s rooted in a steady pleasure. A kind of intimacy that accompanies sensuality. Not necessarily born of romance, but from an openness to experience vibrant sensory stimulation of the material world. How Taurian.
I want to squish and nuzzle my face into the giant Thai elephant ear, to stand out in the rain as an electric shock pulses my body with each drop, to lose myself in the story of a song, and fill every oil diffuser with that perfect blend to amplify the stimulation and emotional experience.
Even more so, there’s a desire to share this experience with someone. To experience it all alongside another, together yet in our own trip. That desire only sheds light on what a gift these moments are. Truly.
“Today isn’t for new beginnings, initiations, decisions, making plans. Today is for stillness, rest, creativity and inspiration.”
The thunder accompanies the rain across the land. I bid it farewell and welcome in the waking deer, squirrels and wasps. A fawn bleats in the distance to announce readiness for nourishment. All is moving with this ending into the new beginning to meet the freshly cleansed land. The A/C unit rumbles to life and I’m snapped back into ordinary reality, wondering if this is the same place I woke to not long ago…
