Illumination
I love listening to the thunder and seeing the lightning around the house whenever the weather changes. There's something so elemental and fascinating about the plays being acted out in the clouds, I can listen to the quiet rumbles and deafening crashes, and enjoy the endless variations in form and colour for ages and ages, never tiring of them.
Representation by the Dutch painter Albert Cuyp
There's never been an occasion that thunder and lightning particularly worried me, even at moments as if it seemed the storm was directly above the house with a noise enough to wake up the dead and frighten the living beyond their wits.
One of the most vivid scenes of my childhood came one evening when an electrical storm passed by our village. I was standing at the top of the back stairs of our house, looking out over the valley toward the coast. The noise was tremendous, shaking our small weatherboard house to its foundations, with bolts of lightning shooting toward the ground in the distance against a backdrop of rain-laden and deep gray clouds on the horizon, a deep yellow and red sunset fading on the far horizon. The sense of awe and the immensity of what was happening totally absorbed me at that moment and left an indelible imprint in my memory.
I have learned to love and respect nature even more since then, to appreciate the power and the beauty woven into the world around us that we humans can't even hope to equal or understand despite our own pretentiousness and wishes to the contrary. We mere mortals are no match for the forces we are subjected to, we pass on as fleeting intruders in a world that has no need of our misguided interferences, knowing full well that we rise from the dust and are due to return at any given moment not of our own choosing.
Looking and listening, learning to love and appreciate, becoming one with the earth again. One of my more important goals in life, which I almost unconsciously took note of more than forty years ago and one which still resonates at every moment in every fibre of my being.
Have a good day, look, listen and learn, and the day will become even better.
Keep well...
---------------
Representation by the Dutch painter Albert Cuyp
There's never been an occasion that thunder and lightning particularly worried me, even at moments as if it seemed the storm was directly above the house with a noise enough to wake up the dead and frighten the living beyond their wits.
One of the most vivid scenes of my childhood came one evening when an electrical storm passed by our village. I was standing at the top of the back stairs of our house, looking out over the valley toward the coast. The noise was tremendous, shaking our small weatherboard house to its foundations, with bolts of lightning shooting toward the ground in the distance against a backdrop of rain-laden and deep gray clouds on the horizon, a deep yellow and red sunset fading on the far horizon. The sense of awe and the immensity of what was happening totally absorbed me at that moment and left an indelible imprint in my memory.
I have learned to love and respect nature even more since then, to appreciate the power and the beauty woven into the world around us that we humans can't even hope to equal or understand despite our own pretentiousness and wishes to the contrary. We mere mortals are no match for the forces we are subjected to, we pass on as fleeting intruders in a world that has no need of our misguided interferences, knowing full well that we rise from the dust and are due to return at any given moment not of our own choosing.
Looking and listening, learning to love and appreciate, becoming one with the earth again. One of my more important goals in life, which I almost unconsciously took note of more than forty years ago and one which still resonates at every moment in every fibre of my being.
Have a good day, look, listen and learn, and the day will become even better.
Keep well...
---------------
Labels: lightning, thankfulness, weather
posted by bart | 06:27
2 Comments:
Happy Saturday bart! I hope in time you will share what your goal is - the one from forty years ago.
i've always loved to watch thunderstorms... i'm aware of the dangers but still enjoy watching the show :)
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