Begin by imagining that you are in a safe, secure place, warm and dry and comfortable, while watching the passage of a hurricane outside through a large picture window. If it helps to fill in details, you might precede your meditation by viewing some video clips of hurricanes; otherwise, let your imagination provide scenes of the storm outside.
Hurricanes are circular storms, rotating around a center. Where in your life at present are you caught in a circular pattern, going over and over the same cluster of feelings, concerns, resentments, hopes, fears? You may have several clusters, each with a specific focus, or a single large cluster that includes myriad experiences and feelings all attached to one another. Identify the hurricane(s) in your life presently.
Winds in a hurricane, because of its rotation, for a time blow from one direction then, with the hurricane’s passage, switch to blow from the opposite direction. Where are you shifting directions in your life, moving from one longstanding pattern or way of being to a very different, even opposite, pattern or way of being?
Hurricanes bring torrential rains. Are there downpours in your life presently, either intense experiences of abundance or intense experiences of being overwhelmed by events or challenges? Can you see what might have triggered the downpours, whether they have been building for a time or came up suddenly?
The unsettled atmosphere that accompanies a hurricane may produce tornadoes. What places in your life are especially unsettled right now, either in terms of relationships or pending decisions, with the prospect of everything being different once things have settled? Do you have a sense of what is needed to bring the unsettled matters to some resolution?
One distinct feature of a hurricane is its eye, a place of calm inside the storm. Some hurricane eyes carry birds that remain in the calm place until the storm loses its intensity; one can sometimes see blue skies within the eye. Whenever you are caught in an emotional or spiritual storm, can you locate an eye, a point of calm where all the storm is outside and you are within the place of calm? What helps you to remain, like birds in a hurricane’s eye, inside the calmness?
Hurricanes of some sort are inevitable in all our lives. Like literal hurricanes, emotional and spiritual hurricanes may be seasonal, coming at times of transition or stress—but they also pass and dissipate. Recalling this can help as we ride them out; we also have the option of evacuating, going to some place or person outside the reach of the hurricane for a time until the intensity of the experience subsides. When a hurricane heads your way, let care for yourself be your priority, and remember that the storm does move on.