Commanding the Weather
(I'd like to thank Anadæ for this cool video that had me thinking about commanding the weather...)
To say that modern man is an internally-oriented organism who seeks out the safety and entertainment indoors is an accurate description. For the majority of people, they wake from 6-8 hours of sleep indoors, get into their car and drive to work where they remain indoors for another 9 hours, only to get back into their car and go back home.
In the old days, man was more dependent on knowing the weather and at the helplessness of the elements for crops and water supplies. Farmer’s Almanac and other resources helped him to sow his seeds at the proper time and to harvest in the ideal conditions. He had a respect for weather patterns and a reverence for its strength and passion.
Man has the internal cues for being able to discern impending weather, just ask your knee joints the next time the barometer drops, ask your sinuses when the moisture level rises. It’s in your body, these tiny hints of weather’s arrival and departure. The only problem is, with our minds so busy nowadays, we don’t really slow down, even to note if our stomachs are full; thus a population bursting at the seams.
We are so a part of nature that it’s entirely possible for us to feel the weather approaching, but can we actually command it?
A pagan might elicit the response, “rain rain, come this way, don’t wait another day.” A Native American might perform a dance ceremony. A scientist might suggest seeding a cloud. A social reformist might claim, “we need to stop the island effect and plant things on the tops of buildings.”
Next time you wonder if you’re connected to the earth elements and the patterns in nature, try this little exercise. It’s one of my favorites to do:
Step outside; get comfortable in the open air (sit or stand). Close your eyes, tilt your face upwards, and lift your arms overhead, fingers spread wide open. Breathe in, breathe out. Feel the breeze coming and going like the breaths in a giant’s chest. Is it moist? Does it smell like rain or dust or green plants? Note the cadence of the wind. When you feel that you know its rhythms and have made that connection with it, inhale slowly and command the wind to come (out loud or in your mind). Feel it coming to your palms and tickling your fingers as it dances between them. Let it exhale with you. When you feel ready again, command it to come and go through your fingers. When you get good at this process, you can command it to come stronger and stronger, longer and longer.
Did you just command the weather? I admit that sometimes it feels like I have total control over it when I do this exercise, but my best explanation is that we have the ability to feel and sense rhythms in nature. When we command the wind, we know by its cadence that it’s just about to build again.
If you’re not a meditation kind of person, this one works very well. It takes the focus off the internal and integrates you with something that’s as much a part of you as your hair and nails. The first time I tried this, I started weeping. I realized that this breath was around me all the time and was part of my own rhythms and I had neglected it, like living near the ocean and no longer hearing the surf. This is the kind of meditation that makes you feel strangely in sync with life instead of fighting it. Man has the inherent ability to live with nature, we’ve just let ourselves forget it’s there until one rainy day when we’re caught trying to lug books through a downpour and we curse at the skies.
Next time the weather acts up, remember it’s like the Earth’s emotions. Be respectful and be supportive. This too shall pass like the moods of a good woman.