Calm Within the Storm
I’ve spoken to many friends and acquaintances who say the beginning of 2025 feels tiring and stressful. Given my experience so far, I would have to agree, with a dragging illness contracted over the holidays and a sense that globally, things aren’t looking good. The fires in California feel like an an additional harbinger of doom.
But this is the benefit of connecting with the world of Spirit: when we sit quietly and listen, things often turn out quite different than how they appear on the surface, in our 3D reality. When we glimpse the eagle’s-eye view, we see a different truth—a more complete and whole picture—than we see with the muddled vision of emotional attachment and understandable confusion engendered by personal and world events.
This morning, waking up with a heavy heart over the destruction in Los Angeles and climate change in general, I decided to embark on a drum journey to speak to the weather spirits and see what they had to say about it. Settling into a meditative posture, I put on a drumming track and asked my guides to take me to speak to the Santa Ana winds, which have borne the brunt of the responsibility for stoking the inferno that devours entire neighborhoods in the LA basin.
Borne on the back of a pearlescent dragon, I traveled south into a desert landscape. I heard indistinct voices and felt myself lifted in a whirlwind, spiraling upward until I reached a plateau of immense proportions. From there I could see not only Southern California, but the way humans fit onto the earth and how, from an energetic standpoint, the elements of nature have to move like large puzzle pieces to accommodate us. Then the winds began to speak.
“We are cleansing,” they said. “The work we do brings renewal.” They showed me images of trees and grasses bowing before the wind in a graceful dance. Ocean waves rose in magnificent crests. I thought of storms racing before the wind, drenching the landscape, and of how mighty winds scour the desert and whirl away anything not bolted to the ground.
The fire spoke next. “I bring transformation,” it said. “Nothing can endure my touch without changing. Every landscape, every tree and structure, must change when I pass. I destroy in order to heal.” Both the fire and the wind made clear that they did not intend to punish, cause pain, or do harm. They are simply performing a task. The pain comes from human resistance to loss and suffering; from our attachment to a way of life that has become what we think of as “the only way.”
After they spoke, the weather spirits took their leave. I thanked them and the dragon who carried me. I’ve been thinking about what they said ever since coming out of the journey. It’s understandable that we suffer when we lose our homes and everything in them. Many people affected by the fires fear they cannot afford to rebuild. It’s appropriate to feel shock, to mourn, and to wonder what’s next.
Where we stray from the natural order of things is when we become hung-up on living in the past, forgetting there is a larger view. Allowing difficult events to draw us closer to Spirit, we benefit by slowing down and considering the whole picture. When we are driven less by desire and more by open-minded curiosity; when we begin learning to listen to our inner guidance rather than external forces that push us into anxiety-based decisions; then the path opens for peace, even amid seeming chaos.
