Many evenings we are fortunate enough to have canyon winds.  They whisk out the stale hot air, and replace it with a freshness that is unseen, a recognizable movement that you can sense against your skin, and a current that you can inhale and take in deeply.  It’s such a welcome occurrence, yet it does require some scheduling… like remembering to water your lawn in the morning instead of evening, as the winds seem to sweep away your mist and generously carry it to your neighbors yard.  I miss the wind when it doesn’t come, for then I find the hot air hangs on me like a heavy blanket right out of the dryer, I can feel the weight of it, even though the air itself is not something that I can see with my own eyes.

I wonder sometimes when I feel the wind come on… are there winds like this in my heart?  If so, what are they?  What causes movement and shift within me?  Is it an unseen wind, blowing in from the East?  Does it bring with it a need to rearrange other things, like the watering inside?  Would it blow any mist from the sprinklers in my heart and mind to other unexpected places?  It’s all supposition I realize, but sometimes I do think that indeed my mind becomes fresher, the heated heavy blanket gets lifted, and the new air is easier to inhale because of it’s freshness…. and in fact, it’s very presence alone makes you desire to inhale it, just to confirm to yourself that it is there.

So much occurs with the wind… and yet it remains unseen, except for the imprint it reveals as it touches the leaves of trees.  But in my heart and mind, I imagine the imprint to be less apparent, despite that it can’t help but to announce itself in a quiet echoing way.  Do I have eyes to see it?  Can I notice where it’s been?  I don’t know if I feel it in the moment, or after it’s passed over and onward, but I believe at times within me, something just feels different, something feels shifted, like I have had a new page blown open for me to view.  Perhaps areas that were once walls inside me, become less than such and are reduced only to hurdles.  Perhaps areas that were once hardened within, become tenderized with a softer skin and center, that are more receptive to other thoughts and ideas that were once unable to penetrate to the deeper recesses.  Perhaps places that held fear, are able to be transformed into an unexplainable boldness or eagerness to explore the areas that earlier seemed too frighting.  And perhaps places within that once held tightly onto a lack of understanding, now possess a desire to understand and find a kindled hope that whatever needs to be revealed, will be as time allows it.  A movement from uncertainty into assurance, a transition from insecurity into a freedom, or a flowing from being bound and confined, into an unhindered and unconditional acceptance of all hearts, no matter their shape, season, or condition.

I welcome these changes… these winds of the heart… of the mind… the winds that I cannot predict, but that seem to come at their own readiness, when the climate is just right and beckons them.  It’s interesting to see also that stiffer winds do blow, and with them they can destroy what once seemed like sturdy structures.  A tree in our yard succumbed to such a fate the other day, not from mere canyon winds, but the gustier winds of a current that was passing over our area.  It was the type of wind that requires you to stack your chairs, huddle potted plants together for safety, and the definite removal of tables and umbrellas that could transform into kites as the winds power could easily abscond them.  Our tree split at a weak point, the whipping wind snapped and felled it.  I imagine it was due to a succession of the continued beating from the wind that finally made it bend to the point of no return.  But I am unsure if the wind actually destroyed the tree, or if it merely just revealed it’s weakness in that moment. Despite the tree being staked and supported, the wind still found it’s snapping point.  I’m curious as to what these stronger types of winds in our hearts and minds are?  The ones that come in on a front of their own… what about the impact that those leave within?  I can imagine the aftermath.  There are sudden and tragic events that can happen to so many, and those events, those winds, in and of themselves, can literally force us into a new reality on many levels.  Do these experiences just reveal tenderness that we didn’t know was there?  Perhaps these stronger fronts of wind merely allow us a unique glimpse into the humanness of our heart and the love it can and does hold.

These are the stirrings within me this morning.  Stirrings of the canyon winds in my heart, as they make a hollow whistling sound like the wind does as it passes through pine trees… this is what I am hearing today… the low echo of it’s presence as it blows across the surfaces of my heart, as it bellows quietly  it’s distinctive low hum in my mind, just asking for me to question it and sit with it, all the while knowing that I can’t catch it, instead harnessing a portion of it’s force.

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”John 3:8