Whispers in the Wind
Article 23/365 of Jacques’s writing quest.
I woke up around 01h00 this morning. Outside it was deathly quiet. The air was so still that even the squadrons of mosquitoes that plagued me every night couldn’t fly. Their wings found no purchase in nothingness.
It unsettled me.
The wind plucked up and whispered life back into the night and everything was alright.
I’d never given much thought to wind until I started reading the works of Carlos Castaneda and his experience with the Yaqui shaman, Don Juan.
The Yaqui, an indigenous people from Sonora, Mexico, believe that the wind often carries messages from the spirit world.
I’ve become more in tune with nature as a consequence of reading Castaneda and taking an interest in shamanic practices.
Whenever I feel the wind, I look to the trees and shrubs and if I open my perception, and look really carefully, I swear I can see sentience in them. Let’s call them spirits because I can’t think of anything else they could be.
Sometimes they’re benign and sometimes they’re malevolent. I was once running in Walkerville in the early evening on a quiet road surrounded by open fields and Bluegum trees. This wind rustled through the trees following my footsteps. I stopped and the wind stopped. I started, and the wind started. I felt fear. And, at that moment I was reminded of Carlos Castaneda’s words: ‘In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.’
I decided to run, and run fast, I wasn’t going to die that day.
On another occasion I was running in the morning on a road surrounded by pine trees. The wind whistled through them and I felt the most wonderful sense of peace. I stopped and bathed in it.
Later, when I interrogated both instances, I came to the conclusion that somehow I created these experiences.
In the first instance in Walkerville I remember that I had an extremely negative day.
And, in the second instance, I’d had a beautiful restful night.
Perhaps I’m romanticising this. Who can say?
But, what I definitely know is that my thoughts and attitude at the moment definitely reflect in what happens next. I now stand sentinel over my thoughts and words and guard them vigorously so that nothing negative slips out.
The whispers in the wind are real, and they’ve been made by me.
Ockert
September 20, 2024 at 6:54 pmLove it, beautiful