Chapter 14: In the Wake of the Wind
"As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit … even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand." (Ecclesiastes 11:5–6, KJV)
There is no stranger creature in creation than the locust.
While he is alone he is only a grasshopper, his life plain, feeding on blades and moving by himself.
Yet the moment their number multiplies, his nature turns.
The solitary becomes part of an immense swarm, his colour shifts, his frame hardens, and he is borne forward by a force beyond grasp.
Millions move as one, without voice and without command, and yet in perfect accord.
No leader stands among them, no plan guides them, and still they fall upon fields, upon towns, upon whole lands, and strip all that is green and living.
It is a thing with little natural sense.
Science can name parts of it, not the heart of it.
For the locust is a parable of the world: how order can flip in a moment, how what seemed harmless can move with a fury.
It is not a random burst - it is another order not yet understood, as if a hidden hand wakes the still and sets it in motion.
And if this is so in nature, what shall we say of humans when they drift together after winds of anger, hate, or fear.
So it is written:
"They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." (Deuteronomy 32:21, KJV)
"For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains." (Deuteronomy 32:22, KJV)
This fire is not revenge only - it is correction.
A person cannot comprehend it, nor can he flee it.
When the anger of God is stirred, even the inanimate answers Him, and the world becomes a single instrument: locust, storm, pestilence, or a mankind that loses - or rather forsakes - itself to a poverty of spirit.
All that we have set to this point stands true.
Yet there is a stage beyond understanding where even knowing falls silent.
When a thing breaks over the whole world in the same season, beyond any control in any place, and there is no escape as from a stroke of fate, only the inward, intuitive wisdom remains - the listening that endures within the noise.
When all is chaos - void and deep - you cannot conquer it by shout or by the grasp of control.
You abide in trust that the turning will come, you listen, and you wait till the fury passes.
Only after the wind recedes is it clear what remains and what can be held.
We may never reach the taste of it, yet we will know that even evil is not senseless.
It bears a charge we do not fathom and reminds us we are not the only actors in this work.
When we grasp this, we can sow our seed in the morning and in the evening not let our hand fall slack - not from certainty, but from partnership.
We do not command the wind, yet we can understand - and that understanding is itself the touch of God.
At times the tree that grew in splendour, which we used to advance our ends, becomes the bramble of Jotham's parable - exploiting rather than serving, giving no good, its fruit a snare, a poisoned yield. (Judges 9)
So too the fruit of the poisonous tree: proof that almost all who can exploit us and our means do so. It can seem that fraud, corruption, and deceit abound - and there is always a man who waters that tree.
It may appear the Maker has ceased trying to change us as in ancient days and now takes measures beyond our grasp - matters that do not push forward but undermine.
"If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. … and thou shalt rule over him." (Genesis 4:7, KJV)
Was this put to Cain as a question, not a warning - and to little avail.
For the imagination of man's heart leans to evil, and what can be changed is not his essence, but his decisions.
What then. The human chooses his acts and bears the weight of both his good choices and his ill.
Instinctive, impulsive decisions reveal our weaknesses. We do not always act by reason alone.
So what do we do. We wait till the branches of all join once more, till the fury passes, and the first rain opens the heavens - the yoreh, autumn's first gift.
Written by Enoch Segal. Published by The Celestial Guide.