Twister

Twister

This morning has seemed like an episode from “The Wizard of Oz.” Not the inspiring moment of singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow (which I heard repeatedly over the weekend, coincidentally), but the scary one of being sucked up into a black whirlwind.

Or maybe it was sucked down. There is a dream I had many times as a child, always the same. In this dream I (as some point of awareness) would be floating in the air.

Suddenly I would begin to fall, plummet to the earth below and plunge into it. The descent would continue until I was deeply buried, trapped in a smothering, dark realm that I didn’t know how to negotiate or escape from.

Was this a metaphor for birth? Or becoming an ego? Whatever, it is not hard to recognize its perpetual influence in my outward life, the incessant movement of avoidance from that fearful black hole.

This movement of avoidance surely culminated in the “personality” of me, an arena in which to conceive of this world in more favorable terms – though that conception was so fragile it required constant maintenance.

Today, for whatever reason, the remembrance of this scary place came to the surface again. I could sense the child that is still trembling with shock and amazement, wordlessly asking why it was brought into such a hateful existence.

I could also well understand why it sought at least some measure of solace from those painful feelings, however ultimately ineffective, in an ego world of thought.


That black twister is still just as frightening as ever, just as dark and threatening with its sense of disaster and death. It truly makes the stomach cringe and writhe.

But now I want to stop fleeing from it. I need to stay there in that circle of fear and not run away. I need to be with that poor kid who is so miserable.


Will something wonderful happen? Will the twister stop twisting and bright light stream down from heaven?

I don’t know.

I just want to stop running away from the things that scare me.