The wind blows, the wind howls, yet you can not see the wind, you can feel the wind sting your face with ice and snow; you can see the wind move snow, dust, leaves and pollen; you can see the path of destruction left by the wind, yet you still can not see the wind.

Broken by the Wind

The wind changes the landscape during all seasons of the year:  Fall-Leaves are blown off trees leaving them barren and for us to rake up the leaves; Winter-Snow being blown across the ground leaving snow drifts for us to heave and hoe; Spring-Pollen being blown in the air making us sneeze; and Summer-Dirt being blown off the sun scorched land, landing on our cars for us to wash.

Most of us frown on the wind as an evil source of energy, yet we try to tap into the energy with wind mills, yet the wind will not stop, regardless of who we are.  In our minds the wind leaves a path of destruction, with fallen trees, personal property damaged, and the list goes on and on.

Yes, the wind is cruel at times showing us no feelings in its direction.  But who said life was simple? Really, the only guarantees in life are you are born, you will get older, the Government will claim part of your income and then you will perish.  Maybe the wind will carry your after life (soul) on an epic journey?

But what good does the wind do?  Surely something, or why would Mother Nature create the wind? Is the wind here to move and clear snow off the ground so vegetation can grow, which let’s the Wapiti feed their empty stomachs during the dead of winter? Yet that fallen tree, knocked over by the wind, will it create a meadow for the deer to browse in or a fox to make its home in the hollow of the trunk?  Or is the wind here to move the ocean and create waves, so one day we may catch a wave? Or is it simply for us to watch the waves hit the shoreline all day? Or is the wind here to relieve of us from that blistering heat with a cool summer breeze? Or to fly a kite?

Yet without the wind, we would not know life today.  We know that, because the wind brings us weather, specifically precipitation (water), whether it is snow or rain.  All creatures great and small need this precious resource, brought to us by the wind, and that is water.  Even though we may think that storm brought us or precious water, it was really the wind moving the storm to us.  The rain or snow now falls to the landscape for life to continue.

The wind blows, we cuss, we groan, we complain that wind.

Author’s note: This excerpt was taken from my journal as I waited out a wind storm in Grand Teton National Park.