Son of Thunder

Thunder rattled me out of slumber. Rain pounded the roof, and lightning flashes lit up the lightening sky of a near-solstice June morning. I love the cadence of rain, stirred by the bass of booming thunder. I always have . . .

. . . As a boy, I grew fond of the change a storm generously gave to my melancholy of a day. Without human cause or prompt, an incredible transformation would occur without warning and, sometimes, within mere seconds, the universe was alive. Such power, such blessing, such striking danger. I would willingly succumb in awe, teetering between fear and love.

. . . Living by a lake is, yes, wonderful, but when it’s your first home, your honeymoon year couldn’t be any sweeter. A cabin made essentially of reclaimed materials – flooring from a school gym, a discarded wood stove, top-hinged windows that would swing out from the bottom so rain couldn’t enter even when the storm’s wind wall would fall – it was simple, yet there was an unexplainable elegance that sheltered our first year together. The life forces of water, wood, flora and fauna synergized here. And when a storm would arise from across the lake and sweep its way into ‘our’ cove, the world was relieved of its accumulated stains and Eden lay cleansed. On early mornings much like today’s, my soul-mate and I would lie in our bed bare and honest and free, secure in each other and ourselves while thunder rolled over the waters and the rain dripped through the tree-neighbors in slow, even rhythms, as our hearts beat as one. I can think of few finer moments.

. . . That night remains with me to this day, though it’s been some many years ago when, as we do every year, our family pitched tent and lived beneath the canopy of towering sycamores. (Modern man fools only himself when he goes camping. Finding his path-place far from his instincts, he beckons their companionship in the recreational, self-imposed vacuum of his own inventions. He soon tires, though, of his own smell, the pains in his back, and runs home to a hot shower and a soft bed!) In the middle of night, the valley shook with unmuffled thunder. Steadily, my fathers’ equation became easier, and the distance between light and sound narrowed. The eye of Zeus raged directly over us, and the universe exploded. No flash of lightning could be ignored; every note of harmonic thunder resonated with clarity; the percussionist was in rare form. My senses were afire, and mind, body and soul fused with my surroundings. I was gloriously alone, lying shelterless between earth and the heavens, between my surrogate mother and my Father, the Creator of all . . . even me.

I arose wet with the remembrances of Being there.