Hurricanes as Metaphors for Transformation
I found out a little while ago that the place I thought I most miraculously and wonderfully escaped to for the weekend as a magnificent personal growth and self-healing retreat may well be in the path of the east coast hurricane, being told it will hit there the day after tomorrow. Who would have thought that the Berkshires would be involved in this predicted major and unusual disaster, as they haven’t been, by report, since 1985?
It occurred to me that Irene as a vastly unpredictable, large, complicated, unexpected, continually shifting hurricane could well describe my life these past two years. I feel I’m in a position of great, disquieting mystery as to how my “hurricane” will resolve . . . and what will be left to rebuild . . . and where, as it finally finishes playing itself out, leaving what in its wake, I will land?
Are We Really Living in “Hurricane” Times?
Is my current life and peaking, surprising challenges a singular reflection of how we’re really living in “hurricane times”, I wonder – these most unsettling times of vast economic challenges, organizational disruption, and unknown outcomes that we’re told could occur in epidemic proportions? Where will we be left in its wake? How will we survive, and on what terrain?
Terran, I also note, is an ancient name for Earth – only difference is the second last missing letter, which (no surprise, metaphorically!) happens to be I. We all have experiences shaped by our terrain, and we all carry inner as well as outer infinite terrains, each with their “global” and transformational impacts.
Top Five Choices to Survive and Live Anew, & Better
In my 61 years experiencing this lifetime I consider how many hurricanes I’ve experienced, and on what inner and outer terrains? I also think about the fundamental and unleashed elements of hurricanes – wind (air) and water covering, demolishing, submerging the earth and fire (sun) and all that populates the particular terrain it hits.
Here are my top five key word lessons that hurricanes of any kind offer to best support what I’m moved to call transformational survival as the “tough gift” of renewal and recreation of our times:
1. Surrender to the greater change
2. Keep your wits about you, understanding they root in common sense
3. Understand your survival is at stake, and respond accordingly by being and acting greater than you thought you were
4. Appeal to your sense of the divine, and open yourself and your spirit fully to receive any and all help wherever, however it appears
5. Accept the gift of sweeping change as cleansing, and be willing to start again – and differently in a different space.
Realize Our Human Capability to Transform
Five in numerology is understood to be the vibrational frequency of transformation. Those are very different waves to ride that exist in another universe with different laws and relationships.
We complicated, unexpected, multidimensional, continually shifting, unpredictable human beings may have surprising hard wiring as part of our fundamental make-up that may make us quite innately capable of “riding those waves” of hurricanes, embracing the force that offers cleansing and great transformation to be the only “spark” that brings new beginnings. Think Noah and what he survived and accomplished . . . against all odds . . . and be, as I now feel, strangely heartened.