Essays

Wild On The Prairie: Elemental Forces

Wind
April 20, 2003

In mid-March a three-day windstorm scoured the Llano Estacado. The fall rainfall produced carpets of wildflowers, so dust did not turn the sky opaque. Still, the wind kept folks inside – and those that had to venture into it teetered and wobbled as gusts buffeted. Unzipped coats and jackets acted like parachutes and sails. Plastic bags and fast food packaging migrated to fences and thorny vegetation. On all three days, clouds scudded and joined, and each evening cold droplets of rain stung those braving the elements.

Deborah and I went out one evening during the windstorm, ostensibly to search for spring wildflowers. We quickly decided to find “a hole in the wind,” and retreated to the lea of our Afghan pine trees, where a high-backed bench kept even errant wafts away. We sat and watched the clouds build, and the trees dance, enjoying the many sounds that pines sing as their branches toss.

“This is fun,” she said. “It is exciting. It’s invigorating. I think this is a good wind.”

“Most folks hate it, and curse it – I heard the word “horrible” from a dozen people today – salutations began with such comments as “I hate this horrible wind,” as they patted their hair, and “is this enough wind for you – it sure is terrible out there!””

“Wind is elemental – a major force. I wonder what personifications of wind have been made by various cultures – something this powerful must have been given supernatural powers and given roles in myths.”

“How would you personify this wind? Is it angry?”

Deborah sat looking up at the trees and clouds for a minute before she answered. “No, it isn’t angry. But, it is hard to decide. It makes me think of standing on the bow of a boat – sometimes I purposely have stood in the face of the wind and pretended to be a bowsprit.”

“A bow sprit, huh – often on the old sailing ships a carving of a beautiful woman graced the bowsprit. Who was she? Mary? And the Norse often had a dragon’s head and neck on their longships. I suppose the female bowsprit was to calm the wind, and the dragon was a force up to the task of protecting the passengers from the fury of a tempest. Did you know that during the horrible sandstorms of the 1950s, Midlanders gave names to the storms, like the weather service does with hurricanes?”

We watched a dove circle, tilting its wings quickly, working furiously to cut through the wind, its wings whiffling (making audible sounds.)

“We need to do a little research. I would like to know some stories about wind.”

Jan DeBleieu’s book, “Wind,” is a great source of information about wind. The subtitle, “How the flow of air has shaped life, myth, and the land,” gave me reason to choose it out of 500 books at the Midland County Library that have “wind” in their title.

The Hebrew word “ruwach,” means spirit, breath, or wind. In the Old Testament “ruwach” is used 371 times. The animate force it portrays is sometimes angry or heroic, and often either gives life, or snatches life away. Another Hebrew word, “neshawmaw,” means puff of wind, vital breath, and divine inspiration, and it is “neshawmaw” that God breathed into Adam, giving him life and intelligence. In Genesis, the spirit of God moved across the waters, in the form of wind.

In most mythologies, the winds are gods and goddesses. In creation myths wind often plays important roles. The Hindu creator-god sent a primordial wind to sweep the waters of the earth. In Japanese mythology, wind performs the final act of creation, dispersing the fog that enshrouded the Japanese islands during creation. In many myths winds are the direct offspring of Mother Earth, wayward children over which there is little control. In Egyptian, Greek, and Iroquois myths the wind has the power of insemination.

Central Asian tribes believed that wind originated from a hole in a mountain. Mongols and Turkic nomads believed that the volcano in Lake Ala Kul generated the fiercest winds of the region. New Zealand’s Maui rides the winds and controls them, but he cannot catch the west wind, so it is the prevailing wind. Abenaki Indian hero Gluscabi finds an eagle who’s beating wings generate wind, but when he imprisons it, the world turns hot and uncomfortable, the air and water stagnant.

Greeks and many North American Indians envisioned the wind as four distinct beings. The Greeks listed Zephyros, the gentle west wind, Boreas, the chill north wind, Notos, the southern rainbringer, and Eurus, an ill-tempered wind. In Navaho traditions, the wind gives men and creatures strength and is considered a holy force. For the Dine (Navaho), as in the biblical Genesis, wind bestowed humans with the power of thought. Wind hides in the folds of the ears of the Dine, always close to act as conscience and guide. The Holy Wind leaves whorls in our fingertips and dictates the number of days we spend on earth. A person’s posture and balance are gifts of the wind dwelling within. The inner wind of the individual constantly intermingles with other winds and connects the person to everything and everybody. Dust devils are the spirits of those who died young.

Lapland and Finland had wind wizards. Becalmed sailors could purchase an enchanted thread with three knots. The first knot, if loosened, brought a gentle wind. The second knot brought a brisk breeze, and the third, a raging tempest. Wind wizards were considered powerful for centuries. The belief spread throughout Europe. A French explorer (Pierre Martin de la Martiniere) in Lapland 1653 bought wind for a pound of tobacco and was able to sail off, powered by a west-southwest wind, “the pleasantest in the world.” The folklore translocated to the New World, where the sailors of New England and Canada’s Maritime Province throw money overboard when wanting a change in the wind.

The Mayans tell of the wind god Ehecatl awakening the goddess of love Mayahuel with his breezes. He brings her to earth, bringing love earthward, their joined breezes caressing humanity, seeping love into our pores. No wonder love is as ubiquitous as wind!