Storms and Wonders

Here in Mystic right now (5:30 pm on August 27) we are hearing the rumbling of thunder and seeing an occasional streak of lightning, and it has me thinking about storms of all kinds – not just storms in the weather, but storms inside and around my personal life. Like all of us, I have lived through countless emotional storms, sometimes far scarier than a thunderstorm, and the mystery for me is that the ‘sunlight’ that started shining inside me soon after a storm had passed somehow always seemed a bit brighter than before the storm. Strangely, it seems like storms have always brought better vision, a brighter inner light.

MINDS AND STORMS
 
On stormy days,
set your mind loose inside the storm
and let it socialize
with winds and thunders
and do the dance
the storm is doing.
You might be surprised
to see your mind as mighty
as the storm,
the two like sisters,
swirling together,
thoughts and winds
and dreams and downpours
flowing from far away
and fading off
with peacefulness
and friendly waves.

Yesterday morning, we took another restful and fulfilling walk in the Canonchet Preserve in Hopkinton, RI, and, as usual, I was fairly mesmerized by the beauty of the place right from our first steps. There’s a sort of dark and unexplainable loveliness along those trails. I felt like we were walking in a faraway fairyland, and the sounds of our shoes on the soft and sometimes stony trail were the sounds of words whispered by two people passing through. Lucky, as usual, to be alive – that is exactly how I felt.

Here is a slide show of some of the wonders we saw …