Meeting Father Wind

Michael Meade speaks of how our purpose is always whispering to us, nudging us to take notice by what we are drawn to and what events cross our path. Sometimes our purpose is loud and obvious, but often it can feel subtle, especially if we are taught to ignore the signs. Occasionally we dismiss it entirely, missing the call altogether. My journey as a shamanic practitioner working with Nature was a calling I unknowingly avoided and danced around for decades before fully embracing it. Yet now, looking back, I see it was there all along.

It wasn’t until a recent conversation with one of my teachers that I realized I had received the call at just four years old. In many indigenous traditions, those called to this path often have a direct encounter with a universal Nature being like being struck by lightning in the Andean tradition. For me, it was the wind.

I was four, staying in a small oceanfront apartment in Pondicherry when a cyclone hit. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, the old wooden windows rattling violently. My mother was cooking breakfast, and though she assured me I was safe, a deep knowing grew inside me: the cyclone was coming for me. Suddenly, the window burst open, and I was pulled outside into the wind, landing two stories below on a small awning. Miraculously, I was unharmed with only a few scrapes. But I had met that immense power, body to body.

At four, I couldn't explain it, but I knew that the wind was alive, conscious, and vastly powerful beyond my understanding. Having the experience of being enveloped in such a powerful being changed me in ways that I couldn't comprehend at the time.

For years, I revisited the memory without grasping its meaning, until I learned about encounters with universal Nature beings. Then it clicked: I had met Father Wind.

Some experiences don’t make sense until decades later. Then they’re like signposts, reassurances that we have always been seen, guided, and called to purpose.

In my workshops, one of my favorite exercises is guiding people to re-examine their lives through the lens of Nature as a conscious, communicative force. What storms, trees, or landscapes shaped you? Contact isn’t always as dramatic as a cyclone, sometimes it’s the whisper of a tree that held you as a child or the comforting warmth of the sun. Those moments can be just as potent and reassuring of our connection with Nature as a guiding force. Seeing our lives through the lens of ‘purpose seeking us’ instead of 'us seeking purpose' can shift our viewpoint dramatically; suddenly we are no longer lost; we are perfectly unfolding with the guidance and care of vast natural forces.