Hi Friend,

A few nights ago, I was in the gentle process of going to sleep when a bright white light flashed through my bedroom windows.

Startled, I sat up before my brain fully registered: lightning. It had been stormy for hours, but the storms had been over the distant mountains, which is enough separation from our rolling hills that I often sit on our front porch and watch the distant storms.

But now the lightning was right here, all around us. And so was the crack and rumble of thunder. The rain soon followed. Unbidden, one of the lines from Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen, The Words Before All Else came to me: We give thanks to the thunder-beings.

I laid back down, reminding myself that everything was ok and that in this land it was appropriate to be grateful to the thunder as the storm moved above us. The lightening was close. The house trembled.

I fully gave up sleep. For a while I just watched the darkness that was interspersed with light. It was exciting. Simultaneously, I wanted to watch the dramatic show unfolding all around me even as wanted to snuggle under the blankets and be held, and have someone tell me that everything was going to be ok. (I have no shame that sometimes, even as a grown woman with all sorts of life experience, I still want to hide under my blankets.)

Growing up in California, thunderstorms were extremely rare. Where I live now, alongside the great River That Runs both Ways (aka the Hudson River), in a landscape abundant with freshwater lakes and streams and creeks and rivers and waterfalls, there are thunderstorms all year, but especially in Spring and Summer. I know at least some of the science of such storms, which still feel unfamiliar to me, but listening to the thunder, it was a collection of stories and memories that kept coming to me.

How do we respond to storms?

In my early twenties, I knew a mystical man who was dying of cancer, and he told me a story of how, one night many years earlier, he threw caution to the wind and leaped into the ocean in the midst of a lightning storm and played with the wild energy of rain and waves. He said it was one of the most dangerous things he had done and that he would never encourage it... but in his last few weeks, as he chose death on his own terms—without medication, living in a hut in the woods—he told that story with such joy and gusto that I knew he had no regrets.

Images came to me - from articles and video clips - where people, cars, etc. get struck by lightning.

So did one of my favorite films as a teenager, Twister, where storm chasers and scientists drove into a storm, risked their lives, and got critical data that enabled better storm prediction.

Then there was that time, many years ago, when a lover and I had a particularly hot make-out session on a rooftop on a warm night as a storm passed nearby - the storm was just far enough away that there was no rain on us, but close enough that the thunder, lightning, and wind seemed like active participants in our lovemaking.

In much of Norse mythology, the son of Odin is Thor, and when his chariot rides across the sky, thunder results. He, with his flaming red beard and red hair, is a protector of the cosmic order against chaos (also known as the Giants). He supports/protects/advocates for humanity, especially farmers. In Iceland (a place with many storms), he has at least 15 names. In Old English, he is known as Thunor; in Old Saxon as Thunar. Yes, it is from him that the contemporary English word 'thunder' comes. As does the day of the week: "Thursday."

In the old days, the symbol of Thor's hammer was worn by women, possibly as a form of protection. A symbol which, over a thousand years later, was corrupted and used as the primary symbol, the swastika, of the Nazis.

You know Thunar, there are some Giants who are running amok in our world right now, wreaking havoc on the world order, and we might need your hammer, that old Mjolnir.... Some of those Giants still want to mis-use your symbols. But we, farmers and foresters and women, we need some more protection from those Giants.... and yes, I know that we have been feeding those giants for a long time...

I remembered August of 2020, when a "freak" (read, climate change-induced) lightning storm in the Bay Area set off dozens of fires, leading to weeks of fear, anxiety, homes burned, etc. At the time of the storm I was in a hotel right next to a dry, grassy hill, and looking around me, I saw a tinderbox.

I recalled that time when I taught, and I really should teach it again) an Anticipating and ReEnchanting Course, where we anticipated future possibilities (especially around Climate Change) and actively prepared for them in our own personal and professional lives, even as we engaged in various forms of ReEnchanting. One of the participants in that course, who lived outside of Philadelphia, had a tornado go through her rural-suburban neighborhood (NOT traditional tornado territory!), destroying multiple houses. Her house too ended up burning. For months afterwards, she joined our class from a hotel as her family went through the process of mourning what had been lost and rebuilding. She knew she was lucky: her insurance was picking up most of the bills, only some of her house was destroyed, and she could build back better. Most of the people impacted by climate-related storms have not been and will not be so fortunate.

One of the activities in that class entailed packing your to-go bag.

It happened that the next day, a friend whose father's family is part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy reminded me that in her father's culture, the thunder beings come in the Spring to awaken everything that has been dormant through the winter in the Earth.

New spring life, the story implies, needs the thunder.

Here in the Hudson Valley, this week saw temperatures 24 degrees higher than the 'normal' April. It was hot enough that I was sweating while doing some basic errands. Including a regular check-in at my local hospital. My nurse said she was hot in the hospital. They won't turn the air conditioning on until May, she said. It's an automatic thing. And then, she said, it will be so cold we all need sweaters.

As of 2024, air conditioners are responsible for 7% of global climate emissions. 3% (at least) of that number is from data centers. Current trends suggest that both will vastly increase in the next decade.

Leading to more storms of greater severity.

And, given the current trends, a lot less insurance.

So, we are in a time of storms.

And that's not even considering "storms as metaphors". In politics, in communities, in organizations, in people's personal lives, in people's spiritual lives.

Many of these storms, literal and metaphorical, are predictable.

We are in a time that many traditions have prophesies about.

We certainly have known about the increase and severity of storms for many years.

So what stories are we telling, and are we going to tell about them? About their origins and their impacts... and about what are the different kinds of responses that we might have?

Eventually, that storm passed over, and I was able to fall asleep. The next night, another one came.

According to my weather app, there will be more.

What stories are you telling in this time of storms?