The Calm After the Storm

For three days, a storm raged here in southern Quebec. It began with strong winds and fitful rain spatters. The wind sounded in the pines and the rain began to come down more steadily. I walked in the rain on the first day of the storm. On the second day the rain poured down and the winds continued to bend the upper branches of the trees and to whip around the corners of the houses. By midday, the rain had turned to snow and the snow fell so heavily that we couldn't see more than twenty feet (seven metres) in any direction. The storm raged all that evening and through the night. On the third day the wind was even stronger and the snow continued to crowd us in constant streams of white swirling turbulence. Twice I dug my way out the front door so that I wouldn't be trapped inside when it was all over. I knew that it would eventually be over. I knew that eventually the calm would return.

This morning, the calm is complete. Not a whisper of wind touches the vast drifts of snow. Not a sound disturbs the silence of the sunrise outside as I dig my way out of the house for the third time. The clear sky frames a view of peach and purple sunrise lighting the snow covering the hills and mountains across the valley to the west. I dig and dig and dig, freeing the car and the front steps and the doors in and out. The storm is passed.

And so it is in our own hearts and minds, emotional energies and bodies. We go through storms of hurt, fear and anger. We fight our way out of the entrapment of these storms - they could hold us back, keep us locked in under their weight. We know so well the feeling of held in, held back. Sometimes it seems safer just to stay inside, under the swirling blinding mess of emotions, old beliefs, old hurts and fears, old limits on how we can be in the world.

If we would be free, we must dig and dig and dig. Every time some stormy detritus blocks our way into calm, into freedom, into peace, we must dig and dig and dig some more. The path is narrow and rocky and fearful at times, for we are being asked, as we travel this way, to free ourselves of every limiting belief, every fear and every old resentment and hurt that we have ever known. And to do that we have to be willing and able to face them - every one. That takes courage. It takes bravery. It takes determination and commitment as well.

Last evening, as the remnants of the storm outside blew themselves out and away, I faced the storm within me once again. Old fears surfaced and I knew that I must face them or be limited by them, stopped, stopped from going forward. I can't abide that - not now, not having come so far.

So, with as much strength, wisdom and grace as I could muster, I faced my fear once again. "What is it that you have to tell me?" I asked. "I'll sit with you until we're clear, you and I." I said this as I shook under the strength of the fear, for it was an old fear and a terrible one. I said this as I sat alone in the night, for this is work that is best done alone. And I meant what I said. You have to mean it. You have to be willing to sit with it and just be with it until clarity is achieved and the calm is felt within you. Hard won.

Yes, perhaps it is hard won, but it is the only way through and into freedom from the fear that limits, that drags and pulls like the fierce winds pulled at me as I dug my way out yesterday.

We have a choice. We can pretend that we are whole and free and clear, endlessly distracting ourselves with all kinds of things whenever the stormy truth shows ourselves to ourselves, or we can do the work of facing our own feelings and the truth about ourselves until we truly are whole and free and clear.     

And having done this, having had the courage, we can then enjoy, completely and fully enjoy, the calm after the storm.