Lightning Bolt
There are moments in time that define our lives. As the stars in the night sky began to reform from the all encompassing brilliant white that had become my vision of things, I realized in a flash, this was mine. The bolt was here and gone in an instant, but its mark seemed to take an eternity to inscribe on my consciousness. But a mark it left, to be sure.
A lightning bolt is an amazing thing. In an instant, it has far more power than we can generate on our own, even with all our modern advances. However we have been able to kill another man with electricity for some time. Why then do some survive this gross amount of overkill? Why does lightning inspire fear in many, and a great excitement in the few? Even more curious still, are those who experience both emotions in that flash. For me it was always excitement. As odd as it may sound, it had been my dream since childhood to be struck by lightning.
In many ways this was exactly what I had dreamt. I can’t help but think that these same moments that impact our lives so deeply send ripples backward in time in the form of our dreams. We are like surfers, always riding our wave forward in time, forcefully in one direction. I picture moments in time like stones dropping into a pond. They make ripples in all directions. Any point of impact we pass on our path “happens” for us, and we then store it as a memory. Once something “happens” it has joined our wave, in our direction, and is easily noticed by our conscious mind. Correctly interpreting a dream, or sensing a ripple in advance, is usually much more complicated. Some events are pebbles, and make ripples too small for us to notice. Some are sizeable, but not directly in our path, so the ripple hits us at an angle. When we dream of these it is from another perspective or in an illogical fashion altogether, and we dismiss them as meaningless, and rarely ever correlate the vision to the happening after we’ve passed it.
Indeed, a correct dream interpretation is usually quite difficult... usually. Rarely, but something tells me we’ve all had these nights, we snap awake. Eyes wide, perhaps in a cold sweat, but with the undeniable memory of a dream too vivid to be meaningless. What did you do on that night? Many of us ignore this meteor that lands somewhere ahead. Fortunately, the human mind is well equipped with mechanisms that subdue, cover, and shuffle our memories off-stage. We’ll be restless for a week or longer, but eventually the event, still splashing us like a perpetual slap to the face, will be forcefully removed from our dreams.
What could we do with this critical information anyway? Assuming we even believe it is prophecy and not our inexplicably vivid imagination suddenly running amok, few prophets led anything but short and painful lives. It’s often best to continue on, and act surprised when the event occurs.
I could do nothing of the sort. I was the kid who got lost exploring the creeks and hills around my house, only to have my adventure cut short that evening by my worried parents. I was the kid who tested the limits of life and death, many more times than I would ever put a number on, strictly out of courtesy for the feelings of anyone who cares for me. I was the kid who touched the power source on the electric fence, to be thrown back five feet. I couldn’t help but smile when I realized what happened, and I was fine.
So when I saw the lightning bolt, I wrote it down. I dwelled. I told those I trusted. I disarmed all the tools the subconscious mind implements to silently drag these events from our memory for our own protection. The only way this memory would be taken was kicking and screaming, I made sure of that.
So when that desert storm began to form, I got goose bumps. I get them every time, but this time was different. I knew this was the crest of the wave I had been approaching all my life, so I drove out to the mesa, pulled out my lawn chair, and enjoyed the view.
Have you ever seen something so beautiful as a desert thunderstorm? Sitting less than thirty minutes from Phoenix, with your back to the city, you’d have no idea you were anywhere near civilization. Between the flashes, the dark night sky reminds me how small we are, and how little control we have. Somehow this realization makes me very calm and content. It is the calm before the storm.
An instant later, I see my bolt, in slow motion, come for me. I already feel the tingle, even as it approaches. As it strikes, I feel as though I have been set aflame, as a burning vision spanning countless lifetimes of birth and death, war and peace, loneliness and Love enthralls me.
Am I dead? How would I even know? The uniform brightness begins to fade back into its component pinpoints in the darkness. I am fairly certain I am alive, for I am fairly certain the scene is as it was just before the lightning bolt hit me. There is no way to know, it seems like so much has happened since a moment ago, I am left with very few memories, mundane ones anyway. Could I be dead, and this is just a dream of what would have happened had I lived? How would that be any different than the existence we live now? In any event, I don’t have time for such pointless philosophy. I may not have lost my memory, but at least now I know what I need to do. I lost myself, but gained purpose.
A lightning bolt is an amazing thing. In an instant, it has far more power than we can generate on our own, even with all our modern advances. However we have been able to kill another man with electricity for some time. Why then do some survive this gross amount of overkill? Why does lightning inspire fear in many, and a great excitement in the few? Even more curious still, are those who experience both emotions in that flash. For me it was always excitement. As odd as it may sound, it had been my dream since childhood to be struck by lightning.
In many ways this was exactly what I had dreamt. I can’t help but think that these same moments that impact our lives so deeply send ripples backward in time in the form of our dreams. We are like surfers, always riding our wave forward in time, forcefully in one direction. I picture moments in time like stones dropping into a pond. They make ripples in all directions. Any point of impact we pass on our path “happens” for us, and we then store it as a memory. Once something “happens” it has joined our wave, in our direction, and is easily noticed by our conscious mind. Correctly interpreting a dream, or sensing a ripple in advance, is usually much more complicated. Some events are pebbles, and make ripples too small for us to notice. Some are sizeable, but not directly in our path, so the ripple hits us at an angle. When we dream of these it is from another perspective or in an illogical fashion altogether, and we dismiss them as meaningless, and rarely ever correlate the vision to the happening after we’ve passed it.
Indeed, a correct dream interpretation is usually quite difficult... usually. Rarely, but something tells me we’ve all had these nights, we snap awake. Eyes wide, perhaps in a cold sweat, but with the undeniable memory of a dream too vivid to be meaningless. What did you do on that night? Many of us ignore this meteor that lands somewhere ahead. Fortunately, the human mind is well equipped with mechanisms that subdue, cover, and shuffle our memories off-stage. We’ll be restless for a week or longer, but eventually the event, still splashing us like a perpetual slap to the face, will be forcefully removed from our dreams.
What could we do with this critical information anyway? Assuming we even believe it is prophecy and not our inexplicably vivid imagination suddenly running amok, few prophets led anything but short and painful lives. It’s often best to continue on, and act surprised when the event occurs.
I could do nothing of the sort. I was the kid who got lost exploring the creeks and hills around my house, only to have my adventure cut short that evening by my worried parents. I was the kid who tested the limits of life and death, many more times than I would ever put a number on, strictly out of courtesy for the feelings of anyone who cares for me. I was the kid who touched the power source on the electric fence, to be thrown back five feet. I couldn’t help but smile when I realized what happened, and I was fine.
So when I saw the lightning bolt, I wrote it down. I dwelled. I told those I trusted. I disarmed all the tools the subconscious mind implements to silently drag these events from our memory for our own protection. The only way this memory would be taken was kicking and screaming, I made sure of that.
So when that desert storm began to form, I got goose bumps. I get them every time, but this time was different. I knew this was the crest of the wave I had been approaching all my life, so I drove out to the mesa, pulled out my lawn chair, and enjoyed the view.
Have you ever seen something so beautiful as a desert thunderstorm? Sitting less than thirty minutes from Phoenix, with your back to the city, you’d have no idea you were anywhere near civilization. Between the flashes, the dark night sky reminds me how small we are, and how little control we have. Somehow this realization makes me very calm and content. It is the calm before the storm.
An instant later, I see my bolt, in slow motion, come for me. I already feel the tingle, even as it approaches. As it strikes, I feel as though I have been set aflame, as a burning vision spanning countless lifetimes of birth and death, war and peace, loneliness and Love enthralls me.
Am I dead? How would I even know? The uniform brightness begins to fade back into its component pinpoints in the darkness. I am fairly certain I am alive, for I am fairly certain the scene is as it was just before the lightning bolt hit me. There is no way to know, it seems like so much has happened since a moment ago, I am left with very few memories, mundane ones anyway. Could I be dead, and this is just a dream of what would have happened had I lived? How would that be any different than the existence we live now? In any event, I don’t have time for such pointless philosophy. I may not have lost my memory, but at least now I know what I need to do. I lost myself, but gained purpose.
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