The Storm Summons. I Respond.
For most of my adult life, I’ve been chasing balance, my personal Moby Dick. Perhaps I’ve been chasing after balance even more than I used to race for happiness--a race that I happily dropped out of a few years ago when I realized that, for all my running in the pursuit of happiness, I might well have passed it up without even noticing. Indeed, it was right inside of me all those years, not out there at some unattainable finish line. So I stopped pursuing happiness, and began to cultivate the joy I naturally and effortlessly possess within. My pursuit of a balanced life has been much the same as I’ve been trying so hard to calm the waters around me. Trying. Trying to rid my life of the rough seas of uncertainty. Trying to define my path in a well-laid out map for others to follow along so we can all meet up at the right places without needing to stop and ask for directions. Trying. Trying to remove the frequent appearance of bumps and disturbances to smooth out the seas of my life for others who easily become seasick. Trying. For years. To calm the seas around me.
But the thing is, I love storms. I come alive in a storm. They brighten my senses as soon as I see their darkness building on the horizon--each one different from the one that came before. Which means that what I did to survive the last storm will not necessarily keep me alive in this storm, and so I must acquire new skills and new knowledge. And I must remain in my center, where my compass resides, as I navigate fierce winds, unpredictable currents, and especially that eerie, but thrilling, calm before the storm. Just like happiness, I have found that balance has been living within me all along, deep within my faithful center, while the storm’s tumultuous thunder resounds outside. In my center, I am attuned and oriented as I step into a threshold of transformation and while minding the tempestuous tension outside. I pay attention to the tension as the storms of uncertainty stir up my fears, my ignorance, and my longings for home to the surface where I must use them as navigational resources rather than recklessly ignore them.
And I’ve finally found a crew with their sealegs and their own worthy sea vessels, who don’t seem to even flinch as I gravitate toward greater expanses of uncertainty where the darkness consumes all definitions and expectations. As much as I love my solitude and steering my own ship wherever I so desire, it’s rather nice to know other sovereign seawomen and seamen who are adventuring out into their own storms. We have an eye on each other, never interfering to save each other, but standing as witness to each other’s abilities and resilience with the trust and faith we have in each other to find a way--to each our own. Now and then we meet upon the land, exchanging stories and indulging in the endless admiration of camaraderie.
Learning to trust my center in each and every storm begins with minding the tension, like minding my elder grandmother who guides me still from whatever realm she now dwells. I mind the tension. I pay attention to the calm that arises from within, and I tend to it. I stay with it rather than running away to find calmer seas outside of me. As the seas outside toss me about, I become aware of the strength and grace that resides within the tumult. Like the sound of a well-tuned violin, with its tension held and at home in its strings, I want to live a sound life, which is a balanced life, which holds the tension, which resonates in all the space and possibility I’ve allowed to surround me. The fears, the uncertainty, and the longings--they are necessary to the balance I have found. When they come to the surface with their threatening winds and obscured vision, I pay attention, and I find my way--not around them, but with them. Balance is a dance with the storms that whirl me about and bring a clarity of new perspectives. Somehow I always find a way. And this is thrilling to me. When the storm summons, I will respond.
