Wind tears up almost everything (6)
I believe the answer is:
spiral
'wind' is the definition.
(spiraling is a kind of winding)
'tears up almost everything' is the wordplay.
'tears' becomes 'rips' (rip is a kind of tear**).
'up' says the letters should be written backwards (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'everything' becomes 'all' (I've seen this before).
'rips' written backwards gives 'spir'.
'all' with its final letter taken off is 'al'.
'spir'+'al'='SPIRAL'
(Other definitions for spiral that I've seen before include "Mushroom" , "Shape of many galaxies" , "Helical shape" , "Scandalise" , "In flight manoeuvre" .)