Winds of Change

Unpredictable, soothing, life-giving, invisible, and disrupting are some of the words connected to the element of wind and air. This past month, our focus has not only been on the elements but on what they represent. Adaptability was the theme around the element of water, encouraging us to soften our rigidity and go with the flow. The earth symbolized stability, remembering to get grounded in the energy of Mother Earth especially when approaching difficulties or significant life shifts. The powerful element of fire is the escort of transformation, and although potentially destructive, it clears away old debris to allow fertile soil for rebirth. All of these elements we can see and sense and represent the first three physically based chakras.

Wind brings with it a different sensibility in that we know it's presence by how it acts on other things. We see the palm fronds waving in the wind, our hair getting blown about as we step out the front door, the leaves being lifted into magical formations, and the dust rising off the desert floor into dust devilish swirls. It represents that part of us that is unseen, our spirit, our soul, our heart energy. We know it's there even though we can't see it, capture it, or act upon it. 

I have this almost love/hate relationship with the wind. On a hot day, a welcome breeze feels heaven-sent. It's perfect for drying clothes quickly, for putting a kite high into the sky, catching a a wave on a surfboard or with a wind-sail. When I'm out on the road cycling, I love a tail-wind as I feel faster than I am on a still day, but turn around into a headwind and my quads begin to moan. Lip balm and a windy day...love to have it for dryness, but if the sand blows grit becomes a passenger on the lips.

With all of that, ultimately perhaps wind is the element that brings us to acceptance and equanimity. No matter which way the wind is or isn't blowing, we have no control of it. Unable to control or change it, it teaches us to surrender. When we wish for things to be different than they actually are, we can create our own kind of suffering. The air element reminds us to trust the unseen. We have no control over it...it simply is. 

It is also the element of the fourth chakra, the energetic center of the heart. The fourth chakra sits in the middle between the physical lower three chakras (earth, water, and fire) and the upper three, more ethereal centers (ether, intuition and higher consciousness). It's not only a gathering point of energy but a place of pivoting us in the direction of the highest states of awareness, the connection to the grid of Universal energy that's bigger than us although we can't see or touch it.

My thought of the week is to accept and embrace the unpredictability of life. When we practice coming into the essence of our hearts energy, we are reminded that we are part of something much bigger, something that we don't have an ability to control and in that recognition, we surrender and let ourselves be carried by the energy of the wind.

Feel the wind act upon you, caressing your skin and carrying with it the scents of the natural world. Let it blow through the energy of your heart just as Tibetan prayer flags release their prayers and good wishes every time the wind passes through.