Change, Passion, & The Great Spirit
All day, a strong wind blew through my neighborhood. On the drive home, the roads were littered with broken branches and ripped leaves. Trashcans lay toppled over, strewn around the yards.
A cool air had replaced the suffocating heat of the summer sun, and the rain clouds paid more regular visits.
Fall is here.
"The winds of change," the idiom goes. Known to alter the atmosphere with cold and warm fronts, the wind is an agent of change that ushered in a new season.
Let's explore the spiritual meaning of this invisible force, of air in motion.
These four wooden snakes with feathers tied around their necks, used by the Navajo, express all the different types of winds—from soft breezes to dust storms and whirlwinds.
From right to left, these represent: the black wind of the east, the blue wind of the south, the yellow wind of the west, and the white wind of the north.
The Navajo see wind as the unifying force of nature, encompassing primordial mists, light and darkness, and the four corners of the earth.
In the Navajo creation story Diné Bahaneʼ, the Holy Wind arose from the darkness to create and animate humans. It gave them language and thought.
The wind enters the person at conception, and animates us.
Think of the vast range of expressions the wind can take. It can carry the fragrance of flowers, and gently brushes the cheek or hand. It can also whip violently in currents so strong it can tear up trees and buildings.
Wind howls, moans, roars, and sighs.
This animated nature of the wind has led to its association with the human spirit—and by extension, the spirit of Mother Nature and the Great Spirit.
In Navajo philosophy, Wind existed first, as a person, and when the Earth began its existence Wind took care of it.
In Greek it is pneuma, in Arabic, ruh, and in Hebrew, ruach. The wind is the spirit within us, and it is the divine breath that hovers over the primal waters of creation.
The wind, like the snake, seeds transformation and growth. Its forceful motion is phallic and spermatic, bringing about new life.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, "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."
The Holy Spirit in Christianity not only impregnated the Virgin with Christ, but also births new, transformative life in the believer—reanimating them who were dead, you might say.
The impulsive and varying nature of wind, blowing "wherever it pleases," also reflects the fluctuating nature of human passions. It moves us and carries us, sometimes directing our course or forcing us to change course.
Lovers are caught up in a "whirlwind of passion." Dante in Inferno depicted the sinners of Lust to be blown about by the terrible winds of a violent storm, reflecting the way they had allowed their appetites to sway their reason.
Odysseus received the gift of fair winds for his voyage home from Troy, but his sailors carelessly released the foul winds pent up in a leather satchel and caused their crew 20 years of wandering.
This story is reminiscent of the Israelites who wandered in the desert for 40 years because of their enslavement to their rebellious impulses and emotions.
"Ill winds" connote misfortune or a spirit of madness. It is our "libido," or our impulsive, animating force, manifesting negatively as lustful passions, or outbursts of anger.
But harnessed constructively, this "libido" is what drives us to build, to love, to create, to explore. The "fair winds" are like angels sent to guide, to inspire us. They are our muses of song and dance. The divine wind is why we have the spiraling steeples of cathedrals, the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa, and "the way of a man with a woman."
With this understanding, you can clearly see the symbol of the wind in this passage of Proverbs 30:18-19 :
“
There are three things that are too amazing for me,
four that I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a young woman.
Why are these things too amazing for him to understand? Because we know not "where it comes from and where it is going."
Gentle, cradling, pushy, violent. The wind is all of these things. It settles over us, flows within us.
Feel the divine wind.
Thanks again for reading! You can read the last essay in this series on archetypal symbols through the link below. And you can expect more to come in the next weeks:
I would love to hear your feedback on this new series and the newsletter!
Stay purposeful.
– Nathanael
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