Breath within the breath

April 21, 2011

Dear Leslie,

DC saved some of the large hailstones that pelted the region last weekend to serve in drinks later, perhaps when the weather seems less threatening. Outbreaks of hundreds of tornadoes are rare. The storms that have been sweeping the country this spring have decimated families and communities. Everything's a bit unsettled.

More storms besieged the region for hours Tuesday night, tearing off some roofs and sending some areas into darkness, but no one was killed.

TV meteorologists speak of jet streams and moisture off the Gulf of Mexico. Families speak of terror and loss. Look in their eyes. Some have witnessed death and most have contemplated their own, all in a matter of minutes.

The people on TV try to reassure and help with high-tech predictions and mostly succeed. Knowing when a dangerous storm will reach specific communities down to the minute is life-saving information. But some, especially those on DC's favorite channel, dramatize and animate weather as if it were an evil force.

Why of the hundreds available the Weather Channel would interest her most has to do with the fear that must stir in our caveman blood that big winds and big rains and fiery mountains and the trembling earth are all out to get us. They predators, we prey.

Nothing in nature is evil, though nature can seem brutal. DC quickly turns off any animal program that shows an animal catching its meal. Learning how the fittest survive fascinates others. It's yin and yang.

We identify with unsettled weather because we know the clashing of forces inside ourselves. Hot and cold, angry and peace-loving, speedy and slow, brilliant and dull. Nothing is wrong with unsettled. Clashes within ourselves can lead us to new understandings when duality disappears. We are both, all things.

Weather clashes turn lives upside down, sometimes kill, make us stop and consider what to make of such power. Where does it come from? All of us who have been confronted by these forces know they are at once frightening and exciting.

The 15th century poet/saint Kabir wrote: "Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath within the breath."

You Californians know nothing of tornadoes. Every student in the Midwest and South has gone through tornado drills. At Jefferson Elementary School each class walked -- no running -- into the interior hallway next to their classroom and we students fell to our knees and dropped our heads to the floor. It looked like mass prayer and might have been if we'd comprehended how defenseless we would be if a tornado came our way.

If we ever actually went into the hallway to escape a real tornado, I don't recall. The teachers might not have wanted us to learn so soon that life could end abruptly.

It can be reassuring to know the breath within the breath is always present.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.