Stand Outside During a Storm

Stand Outside During a Storm

The naturalist John Muir used to lash himself to immense Douglas Fir trees up in the Sierra Nevada so that he could feel the full force of the storms. Oh, to be drenched to the bone by pouring rain, to be lashed by wind, to be rocked by the bending of a two-hundred foot tall tree as it is blown by gale-force winds. Deep nature awareness connection expert Jon Young talks about the eight attributes of connection, one of which is vitality. Vitality is the aliveness, the energy coursing through the body. Connecting with the force, the vital intensity of nature is one way to connect with our own vital force. We are more resilient, more capable, more replete with energy and resource than we can imagine. You don't need a video about how to do this. Just go stand outside somewhere during a storm (please don't stand under something that could fall on you.). Ask yourself why we come indoors when it gets wet out. Why not run into the street and turn our faces up into the rain?

Another utility of this practice is as a backdrop for a symathetic (fight or flight) state. We think of this as harmonizing with natural forces. If we are angry, and we go out in a certain kind of storm, we can experience a mirroring of what we feel inside in the weather outside of us. So too potentially with anxiety. As we harmonize with these elemental forces, this can organize us back into regulation. Please use your judgment with these practices. We are not inviting recklessness. We are inviting you to utilize the Living World as a dialogic aliveness that you can relate to, a conversation partner. The wildness (often supressed) within is also the wildness without. We ARE nature. The energy of the storm is a particular kind of energy. In proper relationship to it, it can heal us as much as harm us.