Becoming the Weather Vane
Leading with Resonance, Timing, and Trust in the Field
Image by Elsemargriet from Pixabay
Attuning to Timing: A Felt Sense of When
Before any of this began, I had already been thinking about time—specifically, the question of timing. Not time in the linear sense, but the kind of inner knowing that tells you when something is ready to happen, when to move, when to wait. It’s a quality I’ve long felt in myself and continue to cultivate as both a human and a leader. A felt sense of right timing, of how things unfold not by force, but by rhythm. I was reflecting on this when something unexpected added a layer to my contemplation.
While watching an episode of Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy set in Abruzzo, I was struck by a man who had returned to his grandparents’ land to reconnect with their way of life. The man spoke about honoring his roots, staying connected to ancestral rhythms, and finding his way by remembering where he came from. As I listened, something stirred in me. It wasn’t a thought at first—it was more like a recognition. A feeling of being reminded of something I’ve always carried inside myself.
What emerged was a reflection on a quality that has long shaped how I move through the world—especially how I lead. It’s the capacity to discern timing. Not in a strategic or rational way, but more intuitively: knowing when something is ready, when to speak, when to hold, when a door is about to open or a shift is about to happen. I’ve never had a perfect word for it, but that day the image came to me so clearly: a weather vane.
A weather vane is a simple instrument. It doesn’t predict or plan. It moves when the wind moves. It doesn’t control the weather, it responds to it. That image resonated so deeply: a kind of leadership that is less about commanding direction and more about sensing what’s already changing in the field—internally and externally—and orienting from there. I began writing about this, about the work of tuning in, of learning to read the atmosphere of a conversation, a season, a decision. The weather vane became a metaphor for the leader who creates coherence by aligning with the deeper movements already underway.
Embodied Wisdom: My Grandmother, the Weather Vane
As I sat with that reflection, a memory of my grandmother surfaced. She never talked about leadership, but in many ways, she modeled it—quietly, somatically, with a kind of wisdom that lived in her body. When I was a child, we spent a lot of time together—sometimes taking walks, other times sitting over strong, rich Turkish coffee, or simply being in the kitchen while she stirred, chopped, and tasted. In those everyday moments, she would sometimes pause mid-sentence, rub her elbows, or gently press her hands into her knees. “Storm’s coming,” she’d say, without drama or explanation. I’d glance outside and see clear skies, confused by her certainty. But sure enough, hours later, the air would change. Clouds would gather. Rain would fall.
Now I understand that what she was sensing wasn’t just weather—it was pressure, energy, and pattern. Her body was responding to subtle atmospheric shifts: barometric drops, electromagnetic fluctuations, and perhaps even the changing density of the air itself. She was attuned to what science might call geomagnetic variation or pressure gradients, but what she simply knew through her skin and bones. Her knowing wasn’t linear or analytical. It was relational. Embodied. Rooted in a long-practiced intimacy with the land and sky. She was using what I now understand as multiple ways of knowing: somatic, environmental, intuitive, and ancestral.
I didn’t realize it then, but she was a living weather vane—an instrument finely tuned to the invisible shifts in the field. She didn’t predict the future. She responded to the now. And in that, she taught me one of the most essential forms of leadership: the capacity to feel what is coming before it arrives, and to stay grounded in what is moving, even when it’s not yet visible.
That memory helped me realize that this quality I’ve been trying to cultivate—this attunement to timing and unseen shifts—didn’t just come from training or practice. It came through lineage. Through observation. Through walking beside someone who lived it every day without ever naming it. I loved my grandmother, in fact all my grandparents have been so important to me in my life!
Shared Fields: Resonance, Chaos, and the Pull of Allurement
The next day, after writing most of this story, I spoke with my friend Betsy. I hadn’t told her about the weather vane or the writing or the memory of my grandmother. But as soon as we got on the call, I said, “I’m spinning a bit today… There’s a lot of energy coming in and I am pouring it all in the writing, it’s just right timing and it helps me stay grounded.” She responded right away and began sharing her own story: a tornado warning had passed through her area the day before. The winds had reached 80 miles per hour, and she had lost power. She’s someone who’s used to heat—her hot yoga practice means she can handle physical intensity—but something about this storm felt different. She said her body was sweating in a way that didn’t match the temperature. It was as if her system was responding to something larger, something more energetic than environmental. She didn’t call herself a weather vane, but as she spoke, I realized she was describing the very experience I had just written about. It was another affirmation of how powerful our bodies truly are—how they often register truth long before the mind can explain it. Our bodies are instruments of intuition, constantly sensing and interpreting the energetic landscape around us. They are wired to pick up on what is shifting—both within and beyond us—if we know how to listen.
There was a moment in our conversation when she was talking about something that really lit her up—something she felt pulled toward. As she spoke, I felt a flicker of energy in my spine. Just a small pulse, but clear. It was my body’s way of saying “yes.” That’s resonance. That’s the body’s way of responding to the field—registering an energetic alignment that isn’t logical, but deeply real. And that’s when it all clicked again: we’re constantly working in these fields together. We are co-creating, not just through ideas or words, but through the unseen ways energy moves between us. We were, in effect, 'weather vanning' together—each of us attuned in our own way, yet connected within a larger field of change.
It reminded me of chaos theory, and particularly the work of Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist and mathematician who first discovered what’s now famously known as the Butterfly Effect. In the 1960s, while running early weather simulations, Lorenz found that tiny changes in initial conditions—like rounding a decimal slightly differently—could lead to drastically different outcomes in weather patterns. From this insight emerged a powerful idea: in complex systems like the atmosphere, even the smallest input—a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan—could influence the formation of a tornado in Texas. The phrase became a metaphor for the sensitive dependence on initial conditions that defines chaos theory.
What Lorenz showed us is that systems often appear random, but they’re not. They are nonlinear, highly sensitive, and deeply interconnected. Weather is one example. So is human experience. So are the energetic fields we create in relationships, in leadership, in life. That flicker I felt in my spine wasn’t isolated—it was part of a feedback loop between Betsy, myself, and something larger. A shared system. A field.
Underneath all of this is a deeper principle—something I’ve encountered in the writings of Brian Swimme and Barbara Marx Hubbard—called allurement. It’s the idea that the universe unfolds not just through random collisions or mechanistic forces, but through attraction. Allurement is what draws things together, from atoms to galaxies to human hearts. It’s the gravitational pull that sparks relationship, creativity, even evolution. Without it, there would be no sunrises or tides, no storm systems or pollination, no reason for anything-or—or anyone—to reach toward anything else.
Swimme describes allurement as one of the primary “powers of the universe”—the deep, organizing force behind cosmic and personal becoming. It’s not just a physical law; it’s a poetic and participatory one. When we feel drawn to a person, a project, a path, that movement isn’t incidental. It’s part of a much larger unfolding. And when we listen to that pull—not impulsively, but with discernment—we begin to align with something both deeply personal and profoundly universal. The first attraction in the universe was gravity. A mysterious force that draws things together. Without gravity, there would be no galaxies, no sunrises or tides, no sense of belonging to anything. Allurement is what pulls us toward certain ideas, people, places, and possibilities. And when we pay attention to what draws us in—not from impulse, but from a deeper resonance—we begin to move in rhythm with the unfolding of life.
This has everything to do with leadership. When we’re in a state of attunement, we sense where energy wants to move. We’re able to guide without force, to create without pushing. But when we’re disconnected—often because of unmet needs, inner doubt, or fear of the unknown—we try to take control. We grip. We oversteer. We stop listening. And the weather vane stiffens. It can’t turn. It loses its capacity to guide.
I’ve seen this in leaders I work with. When they’re operating from self-doubt, when uncertainty overwhelms them, there’s a natural tendency to clamp down. To seek control rather than trust. But leadership doesn’t emerge from control. It emerges from connection—to self, to others, to the larger field we’re part of. The most powerful leaders are the ones who learn how to sense again. Who stay open enough to feel when the wind changes, and responsive enough to turn with it—not out of fear, but out of alignment.
To become the weather vane is to allow yourself to be moved. To recognize that you are not separate from the system you’re in. You are part of it. And when you tune into the field—whether it’s through the ache in your elbow, the spinning in your chest, or the electric yes that moves up your spine—you begin to lead not from strategy alone, but from coherence. You become a mirror of the field itself. And in doing so, you invite others to attune, to listen, and to follow what is real.
Leadership Apothecary Practice: Becoming the Weather Vane
This practice invites you to become the weather vane—tuning into both the subtle shifts of your inner atmosphere and the broader patterns moving through your life. By listening to the micro- and macro-weather, you can cultivate a deeper sense of timing, resonance, and alignment in how you lead and live.
Micro-Weather Prompts
For in-the-moment attunement—tuning into the inner and relational field right now.
What is the quality of energy in my body right now—still, swirling, scattered, focused?
Is there a subtle “yes” or “no” arising in this moment? Where do I feel it?
Am I trying to move the weather vane—or letting it move me?
What’s shifting in the relational field around me, even if no words are spoken?
Can I pause for one breath and ask: what’s needed now?
Macro-Weather Reflections
For deeper pattern recognition—exploring your broader relationship to timing, knowing, and leadership.
What am I currently being drawn toward, even if I can’t explain why?
Where in my life am I gripping, pushing, or trying to force direction?
What rhythms or cycles keep reappearing in my life or work?
Who taught me how to listen—through the body, the land, or lived wisdom?
How do I stay grounded when the larger winds of change are strong?