We Can Be Both Wind and Water

It’s here.

I don’t need to check the calendar. The steel grey sky and ruthless winds cutting at my face tell me November is just days away. I shiver and tug on my coat zipper, ensuring it’s as tight as it can get. It’s a biting cold today. No question: Mother Nature isn’t fooling around anymore.

I look across the lake, eyes beginning to tear with the incessant gusts. Both waves and wind feel heavy- scoffing at both bobbing waterfowl and me as we struggle against their influence. The wind has been blowing for a hours, leaving foamy lines across the water’s surface like rows in a farmer’s field. These are windrows, caused by something called Langmuir circulation. With a consistent breeze, the top layer of a large body of water can start to rotate in small series of rotations and we see the results on the surface, where these alternating circles pull surface items together. One regular pulse causes vibrations that can spread across an unbelievable distance.

Repetition leads to patterns. Patterns can maintain themselves until an outside force is applied.

I muse. Physical patterns. Patterns of thought. Patterns of behavior. What patterns of thought and action are pushing at us? Are they from us? Do they truly resonant with us? I wonder.

I adjust my grip on my now barely-warm coffee mug, fingers growing stiffer and colder as the moments tick by. I should go, but I’m mesmerized by the scene. The sky is darkening today as morning marches toward noon: a storm is rolling in. Change.

Patterns can be broken.

Those ephemeral lines of foam go on across the lake, disappearing from my view in the distance. They won’t last. The winds will shift, rains (or snow) will fall, and temperatures will eventually drop to the point where the lake’s surface will become an insulating cap of ice, impervious to the fickle wind’s touch. For a time.

We can be both wind and water. We can react. We can create. We can flow and change direction. It takes effort, but it’s possible. It has to be.

Otherwise, we’re just the foam on that water’s surface- coming and going at the will of something else. Do you agree? If yes, than we must try. Again and again and again...

Regardless of season. Regardless of time. Try.

With November comes the entrance of the holiday gift-giving season. My guided journal, Dear Teachers, makes a great gift for yourself or a teacher you appreciate. Supportive thoughts, beautiful photos and space to write all in one handy place.