Sometimes It Takes A Storm
A parched Mother Earth looked to the sky for relief.
Thunder rumbled in the distance answering her pray.
Selfishly I wished the storm to pass.
Angry winds and lightening responded to my request.
The storm brewing outside was a real threat. Fearing for the safety of my computer I quickly closed out of programs and started shutting her down, effectively cutting myself off from a blissful evening of surfing the net, E-mail and chat rooms.
I had discovered a whole new, wondrous, world inside that computer. Everything you could want to know was there, I had made numerous new friends, visited far away places, been educated and entertained.
Outside the darken sky acted like a backdrop for a spectacular light show. The thunder pounded while lightening flashed and danced. Inside I stared at a black screen wishing to view the storm on live Doppler radar and satellite imaging.
Mother Earth drank deeply,
giving thanks for the life giving liquid.
Appreciatively a gentle rain promising it would last
until her thirst was quenched.
I scoffed at the storm that blocked my path to cyberspace.
Fed up with my general disrespect;
a bolt of lighting ended my computers' life.
I suffered through the standard rules of grief that night and woke with a sick, lonely feeling gripping my heart. My family was sympathetic, but they didn't understand, not really. I longed to talk with my new friends, but I couldn't visit them - they had no home address that I knew of. I couldn't call them because they had no phone number that I knew of. They didn't even have names, voices or faces that I would recognize. A strange place this cyberspace. I tried to cheer myself with thoughts of bigger and faster but I didn't have any books or magazines to ponder over - who needs it when all you could possible want to know is on the net. I felt lost, that storm had done more damage than I had realized.
Mother Earth rejoiced! Her air was sweet and fresh.
The Universe smiled upon her child.
Gloom surrounded me, I was lost and alone.
The Universe opened her heart and let me enter.
I felt instantly refreshed as I stepped outside into the open air, inhaling deeply I savored the feeling. Along with my husband and two sons I was going on a walk-about to seek out and repair any damage last nights storm had brought. Finding only a few small limbs in the yard we headed for the bridge across the creek. That's when I saw the bird nest for the first time, it was empty now. My sons had told me about it when they first saw it under construction and they could hardly contain their excitement when they found the three small, blue eggs. They had kept me posted; told me when the eggs hatched, watched as the parents fed their young, and witness the young bird's first flight. I had always been too busy to enjoy it with them and now they had all left the nest - I was to late.
With down cast eyes I walked alone riding a roller coaster of emotions. I had been rushing through life doing only what had to be done, spending every second I could on the net. Always I felt the pressure. If I wasn't on the web I was hurrying to get there. Yet none of my cyber friends, none of the information I had gained, no sight or sound held a fonder memory than the one that my sons now had of their encounter at the nest by the bridge.
Her energy replenished Mother Earth shared her strength.
The sky turned a deep blue and puffy white clouds
floated on a soft breeze
.
Riddled with guilt and remorse for the time lost
I began to sink.
The Universe, refusing to let go, sent a messenger.
Darting here and there a hummingbird caught my eye. Hovering not more than three feet from my face, wings going a mile a minute, he decided to land on a limb; content to sit motionless and return my gaze. I stood spellbound; never before had I seen a hummingbird sitting so still in such a contemplative way. As I studied him a feeling of lightness came over me. My anxieties melted away to be replaced by an immense sense of freedom. Gone was the need to be somewhere else, to be doing
something else, no longer did a silicon chip cry out to me.
My husband waited for me to catch up and suggested that we shop for a new computer after lunch. I interrupted him to point out a small waterfall still flowing from last nights' rain. The computer could wait. Even good things can become obsessions and obsessions, in any form, can and will destroy our ability to think and to see clearly that which is real.
Up ahead I could hear our boys laughing as they ran through the woods. I really did have more important things to do.
I had feared the lightening.
Mother Earth had welcomed it.
She knew what I now know,
Sometimes it takes a storm.
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