So there I was considering why it is that a Storm Rider can ride the Storm where others can’t. How does she dodge the lightning, swim through the flash flood and out the other side, circle the tornado but never get caught? It’s not the absence of fear. Storm Riders know fear, they just don’t choose to show it. Not being afraid doesn’t keep you safe. Sheer stupidity? 
Possibly, but stupidity makes mistakes. A Storm Rider runs that storm till it blows out and laughs while she’s doing it, then looks for the next one.
Musings On The Nature Of The Storm.
A storm is a natural occurrence caused by movement and pressure. It’s largely unpredictable, yet it follows patterns, has structure, varies in intensity and duration, and has absolute calmness at its centre. The features of a storm range from the simplest movement of wind and rain, to the most devastating of hurricanes, floods, and lightning strikes. A storm’s path can’t be changed, and the effects of a storm can only be managed. It can bring destruction but then renewal in its wake, adjusting the balance of pressure and ultimately moving as part of the earth’s life cycle. Storms are wild, uncontrollable, intractable, and inescapably beautiful if watched from where the storm’s breath just moves the leaves. Seen with the right eye a storm is a living thing, born somewhere from beginnings hard to understand. It’s hard not to imagine a spirit in the storm, and yet a storm has no thought, no intention, it just moves through its life with effect and consequence, interacting with everything it touches.
What does a Storm Rider see in a storm that keeps her out there in its wildness instead of shuttered down in a basement? Perhaps the Storm Rider can touch the storm where others can’t, deep inside where the storm spirit breathes. She can feel the danger and she knows it cares nothing for her, but she can also feel its energy, its freedom, its sheer raw life. And through her the Storm is given expression, meaning that it would never have. I am beginning to consider that the Storm Rider and the Storm are two parts of the one. She holds the storm and its calm, its danger and its beauty, its inevitability and freedom, its energy and unpredictability all inside her at the same time. A Storm Rider can ride the Storm because she is the human expression of the storm, it’s awareness, it’s conscious nature. She has the strength, the life force, the absolute confidence of the storm, and then brings to it her own inescapable, undeniable essence of adventure, love, and the art of living.
Today, I am embracing my inner Storm.
This is just a little fictional musing, just in case anyone thinks I’m suggesting all Storm Riders should see themselves this way, which I’m not, which hopefully I’m stressing enough, now I’m stressing, now I’m stressed. Oh pooh! Think I’ll go buy a Calvin and Hobbes book and shut up. 
