Gentle Breeze vs. High Wind - Does Summer Breeze Make Us Feel Fine?
- Laura A. Weber
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
"Summer breeze makes me feel fine, blowin' through the jasmine in my mind..." (Seals and Crofts, "Summer Breeze," 1972)
Environmental psychologists, physicians, and mental health practitioners have long touted the positive effects for overall health and well-being of gentle, natural breeze. Calmer wind conditions are associated with higher life satisfaction, improved respiration, energy, and focus. Gentle breeze and excellent air quality relieve stress, lower cortisol, and lead to feelings of increased satisfaction, calm, focus, balance and mental acuity. (Source)
Researchers have also noted the profound traumatic effects on the human psyche of erratic, high winds, e.g., tornados, derechos, and hurricanes, oh my! Extreme weather whose major characteristic is wild, erratic, high winds leads to pronounced anxiety, depression, and a whole host of mental health ailments. (Source)
We don't do well when exposed to devastating high winds. I am a living example.
In August, 2020, I was living with my family in Cedar Rapids in a small, L-shaped home (*I called it the Little Open-Armed* home) on a foundation slab in a beautifully wooded neighborhood near Indian Creek. This was during the pandemic when my home and work-life coalesced in the enclave of our residence. My sister had come for a visit, and we had just put the finishing touches on the garden pathway to the brand new "Tree of Life" gate, the Pièce de résistance of our gorgeous side yard Soulscape. The afternoon felt peaceful, almost idyllic, like we were luxuriating in paradise.
It became very quiet, and then the blast. Without warning, 145 m.p.h. winds from the West drove us inside, into an interior bathroom, where we huddled in terror for an hour and a half while a devastating derecho spent over 45 minutes decimating over 90,000 sq. miles of our gorgeous bioregion. The I-380 corridor from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City was known as an arbor haven. That afternoon, the revered Grandma Maple outside my bedroom came crashing through the roof, and thrusted out through the exterior wall, shattering windows, slashing floors, and flooding the home. My beloved family elder, my sister and I were pinned into the home by storm debris and dying arbor elders. We only emerged later to discover that the effects were quite widespread. The I-380 corridor was a mess.
The derecho destroyed over 65% of our bioregion's mature tree canopy, compromising air, soil, and water quality, wiping out our wild-kin, completely hammering the regional ecosystem, and toppling homes, farms, and businesses within an hour. It took over two years just to put our house back together. For the community, we initiated a two year process called "Treasuring Our Trees" that began the long journey of trauma recovery, education, and replanting. It will take a half century to begin really healing the community and the land from the collective trauma, and start seeing the effects of replanting. It takes time. A slow, gentle breeze of recovery.
To say the experience of the derecho was devastating to my psyche, my health, and my soul would be an understatement. We lost all the stunning arbor elders in our vicinity. I sat with them while they died and rotted around me, their jagged, twisted limbs the stuff of my nightmares. The nerve-wracking noise from environmental "clean-up" was nearly worse than the derecho itself. And I am just a microcosm. My neighbor who lost thirteen trees in the storm said she felt like she could no longer breathe, like she was dying. My architect friend was injured helping someone in distress when a tree limb nearly crushed him. Our ecology center staff was catatonic with grief and exhaustion from storm remediation. We had just put the land into conservation easement, and it looked like a post-apocalyptic movie set. One state park director said his wife would divorce him if he didn't seek assistance from a mental health professional. Our entire bioregion was torn apart by the effects of the damaging winds of the nation's worst land hurricane. In the aftermath, I founded my business, Environmental Soulutions, to assist those navigating significant change through biomimetic adaptation. I knew I had to do something. The derecho had left me feeling hopeless, bereft, powerless. I believe we can learn and grow from disaster. We can adapt so we can become stronger, more resilient. Nature shows us how.
It hurts to be caught and twisted in high winds, and the PTSD is even worse. It is an apt metaphor for what feels like a global derecho today. I fear the high winds of geopolitical unrest, unprovoked wars, mass human and more-than-human trauma, decimated natural places, and loss of biodiversity through rampant environmental destruction. The winds of geopolitical change feel derecho-like to me, and this is just from living day to day, reading the news and staying connected with friends, neighbors, extended family and colleagues all over the world. We are struggling to cope with the high, damaging winds. We need the relief of a gentle breeze.
At the end of May, I am luxuriating in the Midwestern days of gentle breezes and calm weather. A year ago, the tornado that ripped through North St. Louis is still causing horrific trauma, homelessness and displacement. The Delmar Divide has become once again the subject of political concern and stultifying inertia, while our neighbors suffer the indignity, the financial and emotional ruin of environmental injustice. As storms become more frequent and more severe, we must join together beneath the surface, like the mycelial networks of tree roots, to nourish and protect one another. Environmental justice advocates in our region are working toward fostering the changes that will calm and salve our communal wounds.
I take time to celebrate gentle breezes with the poetess. Will you join me?
Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I?
Can't fly, can't run and see how slowly I walk.
Well, I think, I can read books.
"What's that you're doing?" whispers the wind,
pausing in a heap just outside the window.
"Give me a little time," I say back to its staring, silver face.
"It doesn't happen all of a sudden, you know."
"Doesn't it?" says the wind, and breaks open, releasing distillation of blue iris.
And my heart panics not to be,
as I long to be,
the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.
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