Wind and Waves, and the Earth beneath the Snow

The energy of this week—and my energy—is finally starting to even out, after what feels like a tumultuous first 6 weeks of the year.

It’s bright white and packed in snow here. The wind whipped and howled last night. It woke me, and I could feel anxiety rise in my body, like the nervous unsettling of an extra cup of coffee: a buzz above my normal beat that’s distinguishable, but persistent.

That is the energy of Winter: light (in weight, like a light sleep or airy snow), cold, erratic.

In the first weeks of January, we walked along the beach in the contrast of the bright sun and the blustery wind. Farther up the shore, the tide drew together from each side of a jetty, waves crashing upon each other, cresting high and white at the center.

That is the energy of Winter, I thought, captured perfectly in the wind and the waves.

But the wind and the waves tell only one story about Winter—one reflected on the surface. Underneath, there is stillness, dormancy, nurturance.

In Sacred Sound Circle, we’ve been doing a practice to balance the surface qualities and access the deep, centered stillness in ourselves, so that we can move forward from a place of calm certainty, without taking on the flurry of the blowing wind and the crashing waves.

It’s been a chance to use the Winter to know that both of these—the erratic, blustery wind and the quiet, certain earth—exist at the same time in our internal and external experience. We have access to that still, quiet certitude always—even in the gale.

It must be working: this morning, I felt a turn in season. I spent the morning facing a couple of odds and ends in my law practice that I wanted to avoid, cooking breakfast for my husband, who was shoveling snow for the fourth time in 24 hours, and coming into awareness of the still certainty of the Earth, quietly cultivating new growth, under the wind and snow.

I am beginning to feel more like the Earth than the Wind—and this is welcome.

Tomorrow, we take up a new practice in Sacred Sound Circle, witnessing and accessing this turn of season. This mantra will cultivate the energy of balance, of the union of intuition and action, and of trust in that dance. It is the energy of dharma itself—soul in action—and like following the tune of a flute, it carries us into the new growth of Spring.

If you’re wanting balance, integration of wisdom and action, and access to the deeper calm within, won’t you join us?