Unexpected Outback Storms Train Mindful Living

Where I’m heading is often controlled by weather and my best map is actually a satellite weather forecast. But there’s a growing problem. Unpredictable weather patterns. Earth’s warming creates record-breaking wind and erratic, powerful storms that are difficult to forecast. There’s a silver lining in the reality that unpredictable weather produces sudden, unexpected storms. In the outback, it also trains mindful living.

Weather 2019

Today the winds alone can whip in at 80 mph causing plenty of trouble without factoring in rain, snow, floods, and fire.

Outback folks like me are vulnerable when these unexpected winds blow dirt, mud, and brush in the air, blocking the sun and blocking visibility like in Carlsbad when I escaped to the caverns or when sudden waves swallowed my South Padre beach camp.

Credit: John Allen/Central Michigan University

Take 5. Stay Alive.

There’s a safety slogan on billboards lining the highways in southwest wind corridors. “Take 5. Stay Alive”. It means pull over. Turn off the car. Buckle up. If you have a helmet, put it on since blunt trauma to the brain is really bad mojo. Your best option on the open road is to shelter in the car and wait it out.

Sometimes neither car nor teardrop feels strong enough to withstand these storms. My reaction is to clench up and resist the threat, but that kind of mental rigidity can be deadly when weather blows up.

Is There a Better Way?

The best survival skill in the outback (and life) is an open awareness and acceptance of what is happening. Dropping the rigid control of my mind allows my gut and heart to see the possibilities and paths to safety. It invites miracles like the persistence urging to leave the shelter of camp in East Texas mere hours before a sudden storm flooded the area.

This experience is far easier when I let go and lean into the uncomfortable, scary places, instead of contracting into a tight mess and using rose-colored filters to hide my fear.

Be Still and Know God

Many a monk, nun, and pastor have trained me to quiet my mind living fully present, open to creation in each unfiltered moment. Christian, Buddhist, Judaism, Hinduism, all the world’s great religions have some form of “Be still and know God” practice.

I’ve grown to love the “be still” part in the autumn of life. My aging body regenerates and heals more quickly in receptive, relaxed spaces. Even my mind feels peaceful in the process of letting go.

For about eight seconds! Then it creates its own sudden storm monkeying around with all the ways mind-numbing stillness exposes my ego clenching to control.

Granted filters can be helpful in modern life. TVs blare at sick folks in doctors offices and hospitals, people prattle on the phone in the public restroom stalls, families eat silently while electronic screens pacify, mollify, stupefy. Fortunes rise and fall in sound bites broadcast 24/7. Sparkly filters make things appear and even feel better than they actually are.

But in the wilderness unexpected storms demand a stable connection to reality and access to wisdom beyond my own.

Internal Weather System Check

Buddhist monks taught me to cultivate an awareness of my own inner weather system first before trying to assess an external situation. Strap on my own oxygen mask first sort of deal. With practice, a few intentional breaths quickly calms, centers, and clarifies my experience.

I love Tara Brach’s teaching of free flight flowing from the “Two Wings” of meditation: Awareness and Allowing. Can I recognize and name what’s happening? Can I also honor it, let it be even if I don’t like or want it?

This mindful presence of my own internal status frees me from reacting blindly. It makes me laugh every time, but the simple awareness of what I’m really experiencing instantly calms emotions and relaxes the rigidity fear creates.

In this relaxed attentiveness, I can better see what is predominant, important, and possible. Mind, body, and spirit align to feel my instincts and follow divine guidance. Like the guru says, “you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

Simple Isn’t Always Easy

As an American, I’ve learned the value of sustaining a narrow, fixed focus on outcomes and filters. It’s a great way to get ahead in games.

It offered me no help or even comfort when disease and death waltzed through the door of my young family’s simple country life. Our goals, plans, and predictable life imploded with a single diagnosis.

Those years of resisting death’s intrusion are like my current arguments with unexpected storms. I often have to collapse from exhaustion before surrendering to reality.

Without fail leaning in and accepting reality actually revealed that the source of my greatest suffering was my rigid illusion of control over outcomes. I learned better options like cultivating flexibility, humor, and faith. This frame of reference yields a rich and meaningful life together, regardless of how much time we have.

My family also discovered peace and comfort flowed when we allowed the presence of death in our lives. We didn’t have to know all the answers or plan for every contingency. Our needs were met in ways that clearly revealed God’s persistent care. The epicenter of the implosion of diagnosis began to recover when we opened to today’s possibilities rather than clinging to yesterday’s rubble.

The Lesson Loops

In spite of that powerful life training, I certainly wasn’t open when I barely escaped being sucked to sea in that sudden Gulf storm last month. My mind wasted precious time in LaLa Land trying to analyze and understand the speed of the rising water. In a classic Princess move, I stomped my foot insisting the ocean stop swallowing the camp I worked so hard to get to! Ocean’s roaring reply triggered a tornado memory that jolted me into reality and sent me racing to safety.

I drove for hours to the shelter of the forest where a soft foggy mist hovered over the still, peaceful lake surrounded by pine trees.

But something wasn’t right. I was deeply unsettled by a persistent tug to pack up and leave quickly. When the tug became an insistent shoulder tap I waved the white flag and accepted the bummer. I let go of my need to know why and hit the highway.

Turns out that camp was flooded that very day in a sudden, unexpected storm.

I’ve been taught again and again I’m not alone in life’s unpredictable, unexpected storms and I can access tremendous help if I’ll allow it.

Why Risk It?

There are reasons I’m driven to live integrated with the wilderness beyond being a wild woman. It most certainly improves my health and ability to handle a pain syndrome I live with. It also maintains a deep bond with Nature that began in my childhood.

My parents were scientists who raised me on an Oklahoma wildlife refuge. The Muddy Boggy Creek meandered through the eroded gullies of prairie and Cross Timbers. Stocked ponds dotted the property along with brush piles built to enhance wildlife shelter. Seed and corn feeders and salt blocks supplemented the healthy prairie grasses and natural vegetation for birds and animals. We sheltered abundant wildlife including threatened species.

In the winter storms of those days, I’d help Daddy break up the ice on the ponds for the flocks of birds who came for our ample suet, seed, open water, and brushy shelters.

Photo by Gerald Barnett via Birdshare.

Wildlife Forecasts Weather

Caring for wildlife taught me to forecast weather by watching wildlife. A day or two before storms hit birds (and bees if it’s warm) are busier, noisier, and less shy foraging for food. Coyotes, fox, and bobcats hunt closer to the homes looking for a rabbit, chicken, or pets to eat. Rodents forage without rest.

Just before the storm hits everything becomes quiet and still. No bird song or dog barks in the unified stillness. As a girl, I knew to race home from the creeks where I played when the woods grew quiet and still.

Do I even know how wildlife behaves hours before one of these unexpected, sudden storms hit camp? The natural world has already adapted in ways I’ve ignored. Wildlife doesn’t dig its heels in at LaLa Land arguing with the weather or pouting about the sudden change to plans.

I’m confident wildlife will still warn me even in sudden storms. But will I notice or listen?

My Body Forecasts Weather

Like many others, my own body is an accurate barometer. Pain and thick fatigue hit a few days before a weather change. I don’t like pain so I ignore it. I clench up and turn my rigid back to it, distracting myself from reality. See the pattern?

How can I even know I’m receiving weather warnings through body signs when I’m ignoring my body signs?

Today’s unexpected storms barely give me time to break camp before it hits. Frankly, it’s all so fast I don’t know what I’m really feeling because my kneejerk fear response is the imaginary comfort of LaLa Land.

My Needs Will Be Met

If I synthesize all of the life lessons from my wisdom teachers, death, my body, and wildlife I see each scenario taught the same simple lessons. Escaping to LaLa Land is a trap. Leaning into the sensations of fear or pain can open the way to safety. Even if that fails I’ll be better able to deal with it from a place of centered, attentive calm like wildlife do before a storm hits.

Sometimes it feels like Nature is shaking like a wet dog flinging us into a new eon where she can balance and heal. If I’m going to keep saying yes to this call to live integrated into the wilderness I owe it to myself, Rocky, and my family to adapt quickly to the reality of unexpected storms.

I intend to raise the surrender flag and keep it flying. Not only will life be easier but also flowing in gratitude for the ongoing guidance, lessons, and tools to thrive in both internal and external unpredictable weather.

Manna in the Meadow

Two weeks in downtown Minneapolis can suck the last drop out of a gal like me. I travel the rough back roads of this country solo and rarely feel vulnerable, afraid, or exposed. But a lot of time in most cities is draining. San Francisco, Montreal, and Istanbul are the exceptions.

My hat is off to the founders of Minneapolis who preserved the green space along the Mississippi River flowing between the Twin Cities. Daily hikes along the downtown Nature trails infused Rocky and me. The festivals, museums, music, and food reflect an appreciation of high talent and passion. I’m grateful for the hospitality the fine staff at Town Suites on 2ndStreet offered Rocky and me.

The St. Croix River and several gorgeous state parks are within an hour drive of the city. The flooding of St. Croix created an awesome canoe ride on a sunny Sunday.

We bid farewell to the Twin Cities with one urgent goal – restore the balance off grid. I was so depleted I loaded up enough groceries, water, propane, permits, and maps to avoid town. Forever!

I knew what I needed and why. I didn’t know what state or national forest would answer my call for a cold, mountain creek with deep forest shade and enough flat space to set up camp. Frequent rain is a bonus.

We drove east past the crystal clear mountain lakes of Minnesota and the blazing Badlands of South Dakota without a second glance. But the Black
Hills National Forest pinged images of moving water, cool breezes, and the smell of evergreens.

Firing up my orienteering brain, GPS, and the Forest Service’s off road maps we set off to find our next hermitage in the woods. But the answer to my call for a mountain peak and valley creek took me far beyond even Subaru’s impressive off grid GPS coverage. The paper map led me to blockades of private land, cut timber, and herds of cattle common in today’s national forests.

I could feel the place in my heart, but I couldn’t find it with my head. Frankly I thought I knew the plan but all I really had were clear visions, longing, dreams, journals, stories, and prayers guiding my life. Eyeing the setting sun I let go of outcomes. I’d make due. And due would make me as it always does.

One deep breath disabled the brain and my open, willing heart took the lead focusing with gratitude on the cool, moist breeze, towering spruce, green rolling meadows, and distant granite peaks. Each turn on the ATV trail offered more than I had planned or prepared for. What did it matter if there was no creek?

On a last minute whim I took a left on what appeared to be a wagon trail from the old west.

Never turn left, my brain piped in, reminding me of the crash statistics on left turns.

Almost there Cindy. You are almost there, my heart replied.

Right. Sorry I got in the way for so long. Thank you for this, I whispered crossing a cattle guard opening to a large meadow blanketed with flowers.

A delighted laugh flew from my heart as I rounded a bend. A small clearing created when diseased trees were removed nurtured a new meadow
bursting with baby raspberry plants, brilliant flowers, and strong, native grasses. A wide and swift creek flowed beneath towering granite cliffs framing the meadow. Centuries of evergreen needles made the ground soft, flat, and fragrant. The sun disappeared beyond the cliffs while I danced in joyful circles around the meadow laughing and singing.

I couldn’t overthink camp set up because there was only one possible, perfect option. Shade for the camper, space for the shower/bathroom, stumps and cut timber for tables and chairs. The meadow was just right for optimum solar collection and a small deer trail led to the creek. I quickly assembled a basic camp and slept deeply to the sound of running water.

The nudge at dawn was annoying enough to be effective. Quickly wake up! Look! Outside my door was a breath-taking, eight-point buck grazing in the meadow with a juvenile male sporting new antlers. I flashed on Bambi’s Dad showing him the ropes in the forest. Mimicking Bambi’s Mother’s I sadly whispered “Man was in the forest today,”and the big buck looked my way before trotting up the hill with a snort and quick flash of tail.

Over coffee a curious bumblebee with an odd flight pattern feasted on purple flowers by my chair. He might have a limping flight but was not lacking in strength and agility I noticed lighting incense and settling into meditation.

He was gone when I came back to physical awareness but returned often.  His visits correlated with each new item I set up in camp. The two awnings, bathroom tent, a tablecloth over stumps to create a kitchen seemed to draw him like an inspector. He would hitch a ride on my feet, arms or hands.


I would too! 
I thought watching him crash land on the kitchen counter and crawl onto the raw veggies to nap.

The second day, eager to satisfy my curious brain I gathered up maps settling at the table to identify our coordinates now that we had hiked the area. I could visualize how the last minute left turn had taken me through private land with access to Crystal Peak and Creek. Now to verify that theory.

Bee arrived with a hard landing on the map and danced in circles along the winding map trail markings. Between dances he slept, so still the only sign of life was the light reflecting in his eyes. So bees sleep with eyes open?

I’ve never observed bee sleep so can only guess that’s what it was. If I nudged him he would crawl into my hand and drift back off. He napped a lot, especially in the spruce branches I had harvested from a newly cut tree to use on the altar. In the world of bee blessings I knew I had hit the jackpot even as my awareness of his declining condition grew.

No big surprise here, I mumbled acknowledging that if humans find me to midwife death why not a bumblebee?

By the third morning he had let go of gathering nectar in the meadow, preferring to stay snuggled in the altar bustling with a community of spiders, honeybees, beetles and ants. Extravert aye? I mused as I broke my “don’t kill the wildflowers” cardinal rule and placed his favorite purple flower next to him on the altar. He perked up and fed for hours between naps. I tucked him in that night with visions of angelic hives, prayers for peace, and a deep appreciation for his quiet companionship.

The next morning he was gone. I searched but never found him. My mind filled with images of Elijah the Bee ascending in a chariot of meadow flowers.

Seemed fitting. Like Elijah, Bee reminded me to be bit more mindful of daily manna in the wilderness that defy life or death polarities. This elusive, often fleeting awareness deeply restores a vibrant, healthy, happy harmony in every part of me and has since I was a girl living in the woods with creeks and ponds.

Profoundly simple. Nothing fancy. Just Nature showing up as Bee leading the way through miracles and magic in the great outback.