Quell.

Sometimes, after a storm, it takes time to realize it’s over.

Like the aftershock of a quake, the shudder lingers in our bones. The residual moisture in the air can hover as a fog. The debris that was tossed about in the wind takes time to settle to the ground.

Thunder may still echo in our eardrums, traces of lightning dance behind our eyelids. The heavy pounding of the rain, so deafening just moments ago, startles us with its absence.

Suddenly, there is quiet. And it is new, unfamiliar. There is no noise, no movement around us, nothing that calls our attention.

It’s almost ominous, this nothingness, this emptiness of any activity, or stimuli.

But is it nothing? Is it empty?

It’s so quiet that our pulse sings to us from within. Our breath replaces the wind with its ebbs and flows. And in place of the thunder, our thoughts clamor to be heard. Many of these thoughts are dreaded. And the more quiet it grows outside, the volume of our thoughts crescendos.

Soon, we miss the white noise of the storm, the muffling of this internal soliloquy. We yearn for the return of the torrential rain, to be pulled back out of ourselves. We want to mute the voices that call desperately from within – “please, listen,” they beg.

Perhaps the reason we love storms so much is because they mirror how we feel inside. But we can seek shelter from the weather outside. Where is the shelter inside? How can we find refuge, safety and calm if we are our own weather? How do we quell our own pain?

Pause.

Breathe.

Listen.

There is one voice beneath the many and it says, “together.”