The
Eye of the Storm<\/p>\n
On\u00a0September 11th, 1992, a category 4 hurricane struck the Hawaiian island, Kauai. Someone I knew was living there at the time. Ironically, she had moved away from Los Angeles because she was afraid of earthquakes and she\u2019d been on the island a short time when she was caught in a deadly hurricane. She told me that the winds were so fierce, she watched the roof blow off the house next to hers. While the damage and injuries were devastating, the part of her story that impacted me the most was when she described the eye of the hurricane. The fierce strength of the winds let up for a few moments. There was a relative calm, a space to take a breath until the storm resumed in full force.<\/p>\n
As\u00a0we endure the chaos of our daily lives in the disturbing leadup to the election\u00a0with its lies and twists and turns that give us a stomach ache, there is a place\u00a0to go where the chaos eases. Where fear and anxiety release momentarily, our\u00a0thoughts stop racing and we slow down. Our job is to find it.<\/p>\n
As\u00a0usual, it\u2019s in the breath. I attended a Death and Dying workshop in the late eighties\u00a0when the AIDS epidemic was in full force. At least a hundred people were\u00a0gathered and many were ill and suffering different degrees of pain. Some of us\u00a0were caregivers and we were all afraid. The facilitator told us that in the\u00a0center of the pain and fear, there is a resting spot, a place where physical ailments\u00a0subside, fear and anxiety dissolve. It\u2019s the eye of the storm.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0suggested that we all close our eyes and begin to gently breathe. He guided us\u00a0into our center. The room went quiet. I felt my belly soften and a sense of\u00a0relief came over me. All I could hear were inhales and exhales. I opened my\u00a0eyes and looked around the room. People\u2019s bodies and faces had relaxed. It\u00a0seemed like a miracle and in all its simplicity and accessibility, it was. It\u00a0was the conscious act of breathing, the first thing we do when we enter this\u00a0world and the last thing we do before we make our final exit.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0month or so after the workshop, I visited a friend in the hospital who was\u00a0dying of AIDS. His face was strained, he was in a great deal of pain, and he\u00a0reached out and squeezed my hand. It felt like he was asking me to help him.\u00a0There was very little I could do but I told him what I had learned in the\u00a0workshop and I asked him if he wanted to try it. He said he would try anything\u00a0so I guided him to his breath. I suggested that he pay attention to the pauses\u00a0between the breaths and drop into the center point of his pain. In a few\u00a0minutes, his body softened. Tears began falling down his cheeks. The good kind\u00a0of tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u00a0haven\u2019t been out of pain for days,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat a relief.\u201d It didn\u2019t stop his\u00a0pain for long, but even a few minutes without pain was a gift. He got a respite\u00a0and he knew he could return there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back\u00a0in 1972, along with his pioneer cohorts, Baba Ram Dass and Timothy Leary, John\u00a0Lilley was one of the leaders of the counterculture. He was a scientist who\u00a0explored human consciousness and he wrote a book called, \u201cThe Center of the
Cyclone.\u201d In the book, he invited us to find the center of our minds to discover\u00a0the true nature of consciousness and reality. He encouraged us to find the\u00a0space between the mind and the body.<\/p>\n
There\u00a0are a variety of ways to do this. I lived in England for a year back in the\u00a0seventies and whenever something upsetting or difficult happened, someone made\u00a0tea. When we stopped to drink it, it gave us a moment to stop obsessing about\u00a0what was wrong and soothe ourselves. Dutch writer, Etty Hillesum, said,\u00a0\u201cSometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between\u00a0two deep breaths.\u201d<\/p>\n
During\u00a0these fraught days before the election, in the mornings while I\u2019m having\u00a0coffee, the existential chaos descends and surrounds me. Maybe a candidate said\u00a0something that created a furor. Someone didn\u2019t say what I wanted her to say. A\u00a0ballot box had been compromised. Someone I knew refused to vote. Someone else
believed a conspiracy theory. It doesn\u2019t take long before my head is spinning\u00a0out of control and worst case scenarios are playing out in my mind. I know I\u00a0have to do something to calm down. Sitting on the floor rolled up in a tight\u00a0ball of fear is unacceptable and it doesn\u2019t work anyway, so I focus on my\u00a0breath.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0become aware of the space between the inhale and the exhale. The distressing\u00a0pictures in my mind start to unravel. They become distant and the edges\u00a0dissolve. Finally, I\u2019m not thinking. It\u2019s a great relief to feel the space where\u00a0negative thoughts have no ability to flourish. I\u2019m not saying that act takes\u00a0care of it for good. The chaos is never far and it\u2019s exhausting. But like my\u00a0friend in the hospital, we can find a short respite that allows us the\u00a0opportunity to implement our awareness tools, like changing the channel or\u00a0repeating a calming mantra. Those few minutes can make a lot of difference.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0the people in my Zoom writing classes show up, we\u2019re all carrying turmoil from the\u00a0day. Fear and disappointment and anxiety. It\u2019s not only about politics. Maybe\u00a0someone we know is ill. Maybe someone got fired. Maybe someone\u2019s relationship\u00a0is falling apart. Whatever it is, I start the class by inviting everyone to talk\u00a0for few minutes about how they feel. Once they\u2019ve pinpointed what\u2019s troubling them,\u00a0we do a short mediation. We close our eyes, myself included, and I let go of\u00a0being a teacher. I\u2019m a human being just like anyone else in my class. I get\u00a0frustrated and disappointed just like they do. We follow our breathing until we\u00a0reach a resting point where everything is happening in slow motion. We remind ourselves\u00a0that we\u2019re safe and we aren\u2019t the only one feeling these things. We all are\u00a0connected. We all have fear and pain as we become aware that we\u2019re breathing.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0like to remember what a wise woman told me. No one is alone. No one is doing\u00a0life better or worse than anyone else. We are all fellow travelers along the\u00a0path, looking for compassion and love as we search for the center of the\u00a0cyclone inside of us. The eye of the storm. It\u2019s the place where we can use our\u00a0discipline and our breath to keep our lives in balance and find some peace in a\u00a0chaotic world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TheEye of the Storm On\u00a0September 11th, 1992, a category 4 hurricane struck the Hawaiian island, Kauai. Someone I knew was living there at the time. Ironically, she had moved away from Los Angeles because she was afraid of earthquakes and she\u2019d been on the island a short time when she was caught in a deadly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2566,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions\/2566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}