The winds of a cyclone were gathering strength out in the waters off the Pacific Northwest Coast several weeks ago. Here in Port Townsend, my husband, Randy, spent the day preparing, making sure we had the

necessary things battened down and in the house before this unusually big event hit.

At the same time a nurse, who recently started a practice of mindfulness with me, called, devastated by a new frightening diagnosis. The illness prevents her from continuing her part-time passion and she’s found that she can’t connect with her work anymore.

She called to tell me that she was going to drop the mindfulness studies because her goals had changed: she no longer wanted inner quiet, she wanted distraction and noise to create distance from her current grief and turmoil.

These are the days when I’m potently reminded of the fragility of life. When the unexpected shift in one’s health fractures and tears apart any expectations for your planned future, like a cyclone ripping apart your dreams.

When the cyclone hits, it’s not the time to stand out in the weather, hoping to avoid the falling tree limbs and other loose debris destructively flying by.

It is an authentic recognition that it’s a time for taking cover; that heartbreak sometimes needs a refuge.

How to Find Refuge When the Storm Hits

Sometimes learning mindfulness practice isn’t the right thing in the midst of a storm. It’s really more like Randy’s preparation work: a practice that you learn and have ready to use when the storm hits.

Temporary disappearance, like reading a good novel, playing cards, taking in a movie, plays an important role in health and healing as does taking appropriate shelter from the cyclone. It provides a safe place to rest.

So, instead of talking about how mindfulness could help her, I leaned into my mindfulness practice, slowing down my various threads of thought and asked her to tell me about her thread. I first heard about the thread years ago from a reading of the William Stafford poem, The Way It Is, and it continues to emerge as a trusted guide when the potential to get lost arises. This is how it begins:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

It wasn’t with one simple direct question that her thread unfolded and emerged. It was with both silence and inquiry that illuminated it. And as she caught the end of it’s fine golden filament, I began seeing internally how weaving its past with its present would create one of it’s many possible futures.

With my nurse client, I discovered her gift is inspiring others toward greater health and re-discovery of their own spark for life through movement and strength building. No small gift, her thread. The poem goes on:

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Taking refuge in your thread doesn’t erase the despair, make it easier, or limit the pain in the wake of the storm’s devastation. It’s your lifeline that helps you step out, after the cyclone passes, into the remnants and rebuild.

I don’t know which of the many possible futures my client will manifest, but I do know that her thread will carry her there.

As you work with people facing life crises, a friend, coworker, patient, yourself, listening and eliciting their or your own thread can be as powerful as a weathervane pointing toward what can sustain you and them through the storm and beyond.

I’ve been holding onto my thread, and truly, when the wind blows strong, I feel my way forward.

What’s your thread? Perhaps spend a few minutes now, naming it, writing about it or even draw or dance it. Share you comments below. We all benefit, from following our own, and knowing each other’s, threads.

With much love,

Jackie

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