Lightning Storm

Last night and early Sunday morning, driving through New Mexico, we came across a lightning storm in the distance.

It originally started as a small set of distant flashes that was noticeable; as we got farther from the last town the sky really began to light up to the northeast.  Sheet lightning in a night so dark you could not make out the clouds until the lightning cast the outlines and the shadows the clouds.  Strikes in a night that you could see the entire bolt hit the ground in a blazing outline, sometimes so bright and accurate that the lightning seemed pour out its fury on the ground, at other times to to curl around itself as it went down.

On and on it went, sometimes continuing on faster pace, with strikes and sheet lightning alternating lighting up the sky almost to the point of  brightness, other times the strikes few and far between, illuminating the darkness like a piercing flickering candle.  As we continued to drive we steered around the edge of the storm, pacing it for a good two hours through the changing landscape and descending elevation until we finally passed beyond its edge and into the general clouds beyond.

At one point, looking over the New Mexico terrain that sloped down and then up into the distance, I saw a single light sitting in the middle of the pool of darkness that was the ground.  That was the place to be, I thought.  Living out beyond anyone else, just sitting on the porch at night and watching the lightning light the sky and the ground in turn.

I am not ultimately sure what that says about me and my desire for aloneness and beauty.  What I do know is that in that time I found a piece of my soul dancing in between heaven and earth, descending and rising on the bright flashes on a dark night.