after the storm

The storm has passed. And in fact it wasn't just one storm. I'm in the mountains, and I've been here for a few weeks, and for a few weeks the weather was terrible: heavy cloud, rain, hail, and many, many thunderstorms. And now that stormy weather has passed and I'm sitting in glorious sunshine, my body feeling warm again for the first time in weeks. And there is a tremendous calmness, stillness, tranquility.

It's in the air. It's all around. The birds and the butterflies carry it. And I also feel this tranquility within myself, and I realise that this storminess that has passed was not only on the outside. My inner psyche was also passing through a stormy patch, a little bit troubled, disturbed. And today, I notice the difference. That disturbance is no longer within me. And so it is, so often, that the outer world and the inner world mirror each other. Perhaps it is always so, and indeed it may be inevitable. For the outer and the inner in truth are not two separate things. There is no dividing line.

Everything that we think of as the outer world is within us, and vice versa. And so it comes as no surprise that this storminess that has passed, has passed not only in the weather, but also in my mind. And it feels good to come back to stillness, to return to peace. There is a tremendous joy in the heart of it: the joy that I am experiencing again today, now that the storm has passed.