Gimme Shelter

My friend, Amy, posted a link to this video of Ray Lamontagne yesterday and I've been captivated by this song since first hearing it: (keep reading)



I am writing this as a storm blows through Butte - thunder rolls and rain pours down on streets and rooftops. I am, of course, sheltered safe inside my little home - able to witness the storm, but less vulnerable.

We have this rich and beautiful world that allows us to use external experiences to attempt to describe our internal worlds. The Buddha used the unfolding lotus to describe the beautiful process of the soul opening, again and again, to the light. Jesus of Nazareth used the tiny mustard seed to talk about the hidden bounty within. William Wordsworth wandered "lonely as a cloud". Bob Dylan finds"shelter from the storm".

Life is ... a battle, a prison, a garden, a mountain to climb, a desert to cross, a garden rich and full, a journey, a game, a roller coaster, a race, a river ...

Life is full of ... stones, flowers, obstacles, possibilities, choices, beauty, mystery, surprises, questions, valleys and peaks ... life is full of storms.

I think of myself as a child of storms. Growing up on Long Island off the coast of New York, we had tremendous storms blow through from the ocean. I don't recall being afraid of thunder and lightening when I was a child, and as I grew older I loved to be out in the storm - to feel the rain and wind - especially to be on the beach to witness the full waves crashing onto the shore. I can remember my first thunderstorm in the Catskills - my first experience in the mountains - and the thunder rolled back and forth between the mountainsides and echoed over and again. I've watched tornadoes in the Berkshires until the last moment and then took shelter w/friends. I went to college just south of Lake Ontario and the winter snow storms were incredible. I developed a love for walking through the winds and falling snow and the unique silence that falls afterward.

My life has been full of inner storms that reflect the many kinds of outer storms. And, to be honest, there hasn't been much shelter. In fact, shelter isn't really my metaphor. I like to think instead of 'safe harbor'. We can't protect one another from the storms of life - but we can offer a safe space for a span of time. A place where the storms fall less harshly. A place to rest a while until we return to the endless seas of life.

I'm deeply grateful for the friends who have offered me "shelter from the storm" and the lovers in whose arms I've found a safe harbor. I am also grateful for the opportunity to offer that same safe harbor to others.