Thunderstorms

I feel as if I'm on the brink of a great chasm and the other side of the trail is too far from me to safely jump across, but I know there is a path here, a narrow bridge that will lead me safely to the other side. I just can't see it right now. In many ways it is like the chasm that Indiana Jones faced in The Last Crusade where he was supposed to have faith. He closed his eyes, put his hand on his heart, and took a step into the void, landing on the path. A scattering of dirt and gravel showed the path to those who would come after him.

So what does this have to do with thunderstorms? It is that breathless moment when the air is pregnant with violence and crackles with electricity. It is that breathless moment before the skies open and the clouds gather like doom above. I feel skittish and excited and aroused and my body feels like lead even though I know this moment, this second in time, is just the calm before the cleansing violence of the thunderstorm.

I can hardly wait for the skies to open, for all the gathering forces to descend and wash away the debris and detritus of the past, until purple forked tridents light shoot and streak across the black weighted ceiling above and fill the air with ozone and crackling life, strike the ground and fertilize the earth, make it ready for the seeds to come, the seeds that will become trees and bushes and flowers and life giving crops.

There is an excitement in thunderstorms that Mary Shelley took and with which she molded life from death and that birth, frightening as it seemed at first, became a promise that even death could not destroy.

What the lightning touches is instantly changed and though it seems as though the very form and function it originally held has been destroyed, in its place is a new life, a new beginning. After the thunderstorm all is clean and new, shining and sparkling with rain and bright sunshine that uncovers the beauty previously hidden beneath the covering dust.

Hold your breath, watch the skies, and listen for the rumble in the distance because the thunderstorm is coming and with it comes a new beginning.