[I encourage you to listen rather than just read ~ the ambient rain and thunder are worthwhile.]
Last night I was
planning to take this post in another direction, but the afternoon’s
circumstances doubled-down … and now maybe that direction has
proven more true.
I remember when I
was younger, maybe 40 or so years ago, listening to the weather
reports on the radio as a hurricane bore down upon our location. We
were inland and out-of-the-way enough that hurricane season
ordinarily brought at best some tired rain, maybe enough wind to fly
a kite, and certainly washes of swampy humidity. That’s what made
this one an event: This one, against all odds, persisted as it
crawled up the coast and finally turned inward for its kamikaze run.
The weather radios
buzzing with warnings to take shelter were suddenly overpowered by
the intensifying wind. The skies turned dark as tall pines and
hardwoods alike contorted in a macabre dance. Whether it was at my
family’s prodding or due to a delayed re-acquisition of my senses,
I don’t know ~ but I withdrew from my windowed overwatch and moved
to the interior. I listened ~ and I felt ~ the storm washing through
me with such power…
But there was no
crescendo ~ no wild climax of nature. What followed was far
more intriguing ~ something that I don’t know if I’d experienced
prior.
Years later in martial arts studies I’d learn the Japanese word
zanshin ~ a certain
residual, relaxed, and heightened awareness following the perfect
execution of a technique. To
an observer, it is done ~ but really it is not. The scene is still,
yes
~ your opponent is down, but
maybe not yet subdued. You remain connected to this moment and to
your opponent until the energy is dissipated and the encounter
finally resolved.
There
was a sudden stillness and, upon
opening the door, I saw there
was sunlight as well. I
wandered into the yard. .. and I wandered down the block. I wandered
up and down the avenue, surveying uprooted trees and a few damaged
roofs, the debris scattered indiscriminately. For
maybe twenty minutes I wandered, appearing imperceptibly still on the
scale of what passed, until the roar resumed and the darkness
followed, the trees dancing in reverse as the scene unwound. The eye
had passed ~ the stillness broken ~ as the storm retook
control.
Yesterday
I sat at the table’s head for an impromptu family lunch. It was
loud and it was spirited ~ right until it wasn’t. There was an
internal wind… and there was sudden darkness… and then there was
a cold stillness. My wife
was restrained in horror, my son looked for an escape from the table,
and my daughter was in tears wondering what she had done wrong ~ and
how she might resolve it. As her emotions railed, my own were
absent; and as she lashed out, my verbal
grip tightened. There was
only zanshin ~ a very
cold ~
and a very cruel ~
zanshin…
It
took some time for us to sit down again and for her to ask ~ and for
me to acknowledge ~ what repressed feelings ~ justified or not ~ that
I may have brought to that
encounter. In some reality,
though, the awareness was there ~ and at any time, with that clarity,
I could have released
the grip ~ but I didn’t. Somehow, the energy was not yet
dissipated ~ the encounter was not complete. To see it in any other
light, I would have to ask whether I enjoyed the
encounter as sport ~ or as
prey… that somehow I used practices I’d
honed
for peace in some
dark fashion.
The
other night, I sat on the front porch beneath the overhang with an
evening cup of coffee as
a strong summer storm passed.
I always find some peace in
the power of lightning crackling and feeling waves of thunder washing
through my core. Where others may sensibly retreat, I am routinely
drawn to it. Maybe it takes
me outside of myself for a moment. Maybe I feel the heightened
awareness and the lingering
connection ~ the zanshin.
Maybe I see some hidden part of me, just
below the surface,
externalized, revealing
itself to be recognized. Who knows? But whatever it is, it
passes ~ and with it goes whatever dark part of me that I attached ~
at least for now. Or so I
hope.
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