I'm sitting here with the door ajar and feeling the rain drops fall on my bare feet, listening to mother nature's most angry and powerful war-cry. A call to arms and action. The frenetic energy and static in the air is palpable, I can almost taste it. It is moving something deep inside me, in my soul.
I've found over the last few years that storm weather is greatly productive for me and perhaps it is the air pressure differential that drives me as I am very sensitive to it and can predict when the rain will fall, or perhaps it is the anticipatory anxiety of waiting for the thunder clap after the lightning hits but it fills me with motivation and fuels me to be more. More of the true me, more of the authentic take-no-shit or prisoners attitude. More of the fun loving and energetic me too.
I have also found that today alone as if I could sense it's coming, I have been exceptionally creative in both thought and action. I have done things today that I would quite possibly have put off if it was some other time. I have had thoughts of hatred, anger, frustration, comfort, love and many more in between in the little moments when my mind wanders. I've felt emboldened today by so many words and actions of others and myself. I felt empowered and as I sat with my feet being cooled off by the rain falling from them, I watched with a smile as the lightning streaked in bright flashes across the sky. I felt the wind whip up pushing the cloud burst forward and gusting cool air onto my toes. But inside, I felt warm. The spark had been lit inside me today. The quest to move forward, onward, fight the good fight and walk the walk, not just talk the talk. I felt my back straighten as if I were a soldier walking into the unknown of war...I felt my jaw clench, I became resolute to be all that I can be and still strive for more.
I purveyed the beautiful fields and mountains before me and it was as if they were all calling to me, calling me home, to come back to the strength and power I have grasped before in times like this, the quagmire of unknowns that lay stretched out before us...the present mingling into the future as time passes and the clock ticks them away.
There is a white hot fire burning within me now and it is ferocious. I will dig my hands deep into the soil and plant myself firmly within the earth to hold onto this feeling in the times to come.
And as the crescendo of the storm waged on around me, I then was instantly calmed and at peace. A quiet place where I could be myself and feel the chaos around me, but not within me. Everything in me became still. There was silence inside, that kind of Zen feeling you get after meditating where everything seems to have fallen into place for a split second and you can see the world with true clarity.
And when the storm subsided and the clouds had emptied enough to move off, I still remained. Sitting with a smile on my face and water still clinging to my toes, but something in my world had shifted and I thank the storm for that. Sometimes you need the chaos to find the still calmness you need to push through and stand up, a little straighter, a little taller, with you head held just a little higher and then let the smile become a grimace as you steady yourself for what lies ahead.
The image was taken by me