Hurricane Wisdom: Forget rainmaking
Focus on creating a vessel for rain to flow through your business
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi
I was sitting in a swanky hotel restaurant in downtown Denver, eating breakfast with my friend Maia, who was in town for book-signing events to celebrate the launch of her new creation. I expressed my gratitude for the hurricane that was approaching her home in North Carolina, which caused her to get on a plane a day early and allowed us this unexpected time to spend together.
I began sharing my views on business that are in many ways counter to the mainstream approach. Becoming more animated as I spoke passionately, I grabbed the round container of sugar packets that sat at the center of the table.
“See, most business leaders think that the goal is to pile more into the center ~ more work, more people, more resources ~ in an effort to create the goal. But that’s not how it works.
“The abundance we’re all seeking in business is already there. We don’t create abundance. It’s an unconditional energy that exists all around us as a potential. Our job is simply to align ourselves with that energy and create a container that it can flow through.”
I started pulling sugar packets out of the container, and excitedly pointed to the now-empty container.
“This is where the focus needs to be! All we really need to do is create more space ~ removing what’s in the way, what’s blocking the flow. We focus on the container, bringing the pieces of the puzzle into greater alignment, optimizing the conditions that allow for the naturally regenerative, toroidal flow of abundance to cascade through the organization with more grace and ease.”
Maia looked at me and said, “You know, this reminds me of a hurricane. The experts don’t worry too much about a tropical storm until it organizes itself. Once the eye-wall forms, that’s when it becomes a really potent force of nature.”
Create the conditions that form the eye wall
I’ve since looked into how hurricanes, the most powerful storms on Earth, are formed.
Air from surrounding areas with higher air pressure pushes in to a low pressure area. Then that “new” air becomes warm and moist and rises, too. As the warm air continues to rise, the surrounding air swirls in to take its place. As the warmed moist air rises and cools off, the water in the air forms clouds. The whole system of clouds and wind spins and grows, fed by the ocean’s heat and water evaporating from the surface.
In other words, a torus field of energy is created.
As the storm system rotates faster and faster, an eye forms in the center. It’s very calm and clear in the eye, with very low air pressure. Higher pressure air from above flows down into the eye.
This is what we want to focus on in our business ~ creating the optimal conditions for an eye wall to form that allows the natural flow of abundance {life-force energy} to flow through the organization and generate its output.
There are several tools we can use to assemble this container in our organizations:
- get crystal clear on the core essence ~ why does the organization exist? what is its organizing principle? The best way I know to tap into this is to ask the Grail Question: What is the highest form of service we can bring for our fellow human beings and the Earth?
- bring the pieces of the puzzle into alignment ~ match the unique genius of team members with core functions and allow them to self-organize into teams that work synergistically
- create more space ~ remove or resolve whatever is damming up the flow of service {outflow} and prosperity {inflow} that wants to run through the organization
- focus a bit less on doing and knowing, and a bit more on listening and asking in a space of curiosity. Remember that the eye of the hurricane is a very calm, clear and low-pressure environment
- lighten up ~ bring a spirit of playfulness and experimentation to the game. Nature does not worry, fret or fear the future; it creates in the present moment
Create a system of receiving and giving the rain
As Maia explained, the hurricane approaching North Carolina was most worrisome because it was predicted to stall over land and dump dangerous amounts of rain over the area.
It struck me that this is often the way with business ~ it’s either feast or famine, drought or flooding.
But this is a reflection of an ecosystem that is out of balance ~ parched earth that is not able to absorb a sudden tremendous influx of rain, not able to distribute the water that nourishes the plants and animals, and not able to regenerate itself through the natural cycles of evaporation and condensation.
So how do we learn to work in greater harmony and alignment with nature? How do we create containers that are able to receive the material output from a force field of energy that moves through the organization without destroying the organization or others in its ecosystem?
How do we create fertile ground that allows the organization to receive large amounts of rainfall? How do we create systems of gutters and rain barrels that naturally redistribute and share the rain, allowing more people to benefit from this amazing resource without being destroyed by it?
The best way I know to do this is to keep the flow moving through the organization. Meet the needs of the entity and redistribute the surplus. By serving and sharing, rather than stockpiling, we create more space for true prosperity to fall like nourishing rain in the system.
This requires trust ~ surrendering to the knowing that more rain will fall. If we try to hold too tightly to the rain that comes in, saving it just in case it doesn’t come again soon enough to meet our future needs, we constrict the natural flow of true prosperity ~ we take ourselves out of the high-frequency energy of abundance and drop into the low-vibration realms of scarcity and lack, which only begets more of the same.
This the way of the Holy Grail ~ the golden chalice through which unconditional life-force energy flows continuously, regenerating itself as it overflows.
I love the image of the outstretched hand in the traditional Ace of Cups tarot card ~ which can be seen as both receiving and giving.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi
The wisdom of Rumi, the ancient Sufi mystic, applies equally to our business initiatives. Giving, receiving, serving and sharing can flow through our organizations with grace and ease ~ we just need to be clear in our focus and remove whatever is damming the flow of that energy. {Hint: these dams are typically constructed of lack-based energies.}
We don’t make the rain any more than we make life-force energy. And we don’t make abundance and prosperity. We simply create the conditions that allow those energies to flow naturally, to nourish others, and to proliferate.
So let’s shift our focus from rain-making and direct our attention to creating a more regenerative chalice ~ one that is uncluttered, allows for a free flow in alignment with natural principles, and is founded on sharing and serving.
