A Story in 3 Parts
I loved storms as a kid. I felt like everything calmed down when it
stormed and I appreciated the acknowledgement I received from the sky
that affirmed life was thunderous, threatening, gray, wet, turbulent,
furious, powerful.
I felt it was my job at all times to be the eye of the storm. My only
salvation was to hold myself and, as many family members as I could,
back from the violent eyewall, that constantly threatened to destabilize
and uproot our very lives.
Storms began showing up in my dreams when Manou and I were having
a really hard time in our marriage. At that time, too, we lived in a house,
halfway up a mountain where thunderstorms would circle our home,
lightning would strike close around us and tempestuous winds would
blow down branches and limbs on our maple, pine and beautiful birch
trees.
As my work on myself and in our relationship progressed to new depths,
my storm dreams changed and eventually changed in dramatic ways.
One of my last storm dreams was one where I was with Manou and a
group of strangers. We were in a huge warehouse building and there was
a tornado outside. We needed to find cover and instead of going down, I
led everyone to a long staircase that climbed up along the side of the
building, inside. Instead of a wall, there were windows that I could see
out of as we climbed up. At one point, the funnel of the twister appeared
right outside the window. I reached up and with the tips of my fingers on
my right hand, I delicately touched the tail of the funnel and it turned to
beautiful, clear crystal. I was mesmerized. I continued the climb to the
top floor and when I arrived somehow Manou had gotten there first and
he was standing on a ledge right outside the building. I went out to see
him and he motioned me to notice that the ledge had a cluster of
beautiful crystals sitting in a corner where the ledge jutted out. I stepped
back into the building and motioned him to come in and see an altar
sitting right inside the doorway. Standing there, I looked outside the
huge picture window, noticed the sky was clearing and that there was a
city teeming below us. All of a sudden, a huge, mythological scroll
dropped down from the center of the sky and it had words on it that
began, “Those of you who know Kalpana Devi know that she is….” And
it went on to describe me in the most godly, beautiful way. I wish I could
remember the words. It was miraculous. I felt whole, held, destined,
favored. I went to the altar and there was a pouch on it. I took the pouch
off of it and said to Manou, “Look. Here is a gift.” And, I woke up.
For so long, before that time, before that dream, I remained tethered to the impossible belief that in order to live, I’d have to hold back or calm the incessant storm. Seated in my dad’s car, antisemitic graffiti assaulting each window and my father's seething dissent caused him to slowly roam the neighborhood, with me in the backseat, in a defiant protest against hate. I was the eye of the storm there. I held my breath, so as not to fuel the tempest in my
dad or in the antisemitic ghoul. I remained invisible and withheld any current from the vehement eyewall.
As I grew, I made an altar and, at it, I threw myself into a movement
with the storm. My urgent ballet at the center dared touching the layers
out from there; the inevitable encounters, outbreak, eruptions. The
downpour of contending.
Eventually, the storm became crystal. The relentless squall that once
lived in me became consciousness. It became illumination at the center
of my life that grew to fill my sky.
As I transformed, my dreams did too. They became filled at times with a
presence that rewrote my whole existence; a new kind of shelter that
enabled me to inherit the elements of the gods.
I have come to heal and to
experience wholeness and
complete freedom.
This Earth is a soft, blue dot in the expanding multiverse where I have
come to live my potential and to experience the great awakening.
I have come to thrive.
For all of us;
all souls everywhere;
I pray for healing and
I pray for grace.
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