7:30 BELLS: Cathedrals of Wind

Wind makes me feel alive—alive from my toes to the ends of my blowing hair. The broom of the wind sweeps every cobweb from my mind. In the Pacific Northwest this week, a spring cocktail of wind, rain, sun, and clouds swirled over the land. Wind makes me feel alive because it brings the world alive. Leaves blow. Flowers rumba. Usually sober pine trees rejoice in their majesty by swaying. The bamboo outside my writing window swishes—tossing light and dark from leaf to leaf. (video) The whole world is moving, breathing. My soul comes alive in the breath of the wind.

People have long connected the ideas of spirit, breath, and wind. Ruach is the old Hebrew for breath, wind or spirit. The Greek word, pneuma also means wind and spirit. In India, I believe the word Brahmachaitanya, means the Breath of God.

Before the windy weather hit this week, a friend and I were comparing our writing styles. The word that emerged for my style was breath. I like breath in my work. To me that means movement, spaciousness, life, energy. I want a style where the wind can dance in the words, a place where the light can get in—prose that lets the reader breath and dance, too.

As a person who meditates, I love to watch the air move through my body. Sometimes--rare, wonderful moments--I have felt as though the world were breathing me. As though I've joined with God’s breath. Then, without any roped being pulled, the bells ring in a cathedral of wind.

I would like my books to be Cathedrals of Wind.

LORE OF THE BELL: 

The wind of the breath of the soul rings the bell.