Invisible Force

When you see a tree shaking in the wind, it seems to dance. It’s boughs do not move in stiff unity. They move as if the wind-sound were music that the tree enjoyed un-self-consciously. If we did not know the power of wind, the tree might seem to have thought and to move by its own strength. If we forget the wind, we might even imagine the tree uprooting itself and striding away like a giant in search of other joy.

We cannot see the wind, but we can hear it. When it blows over trees and houses at night, it can arrest our ears like a spirit of the darkness. I slept in a forest once, and the wind screeched over the trees like waves of angels or demons rushing overhead on their way to battle.

There is power in wind. A hurricane can trap a family in their home. A tornado can chase a family into their cellar. We have known the deadliness of these winds in recent times.

Wind is a portent. It carries the ocean to the traveler on land. It carries the land to the traveler on the ocean. It is the first native to greet a traveler to the tropics as she steps out through the portal of her airplane.

Wind is a destroyer. It carries fire from tree to tree across thousands of acres. At Mann Gulch, in Montana, it chased down thirteen young men who had parachuted in to fight a fire, and the fire it flung before it took them, all but one.

Wind is a life-giver. It shepherds rain-carrying clouds over needy earth.

Wind is freedom. Redtail hawks float upon it above fields. Decades ago, in England, I emerged past a cliff on the way to a township at the end of a day’s hike. A man hung below a rectangular parachute, riding the winds next to the cliff to it’s heights, up and down, while I passed from view.

The wind is a thing of pleasure to children. A noisy child might be still to enjoy the kiss of a soft, warm breeze. A child’s eyes might trace a long white string from his hand to a kite swinging in arcs, tethering him to the sky. A child might be mesmerized by chimes.

Wind is a boon. It has ground grain, carried ships, and powered city lights.

Our ancestors have always reckoned the wind.

"The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8 (NRV).)

The Lord spoke to Job out of a whirlwind. (Job 8:1.)

"The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind." (Bob Dylan (1962).)

"Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned our cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head!" (W. Shakespear, King Lear, act 3, sc. 2 (1605-1606).)

"Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby, cradle, and all." (Nursery rhyme.)

Frank Swinnerton wrote of "A northeast wind that cut like a thousand razors."

Rebecca West compared a high wind to "invisible icicles".

Patricia Henley wrote of "Wind like a hungry coyote’s cry."

Scott Spencer wrote of wind that "screamed like a huge, injured thing."

Ellen Glasgow wrote of wind that "plunged like a hawk from the swollen clouds."

The wind preceded us. One day it might blow over our bones. In the meantime, it moves us, it terrorizes us, it loves us, it teaches us.