The Ancient Dance of Earth and Sky

Dark cumulus clouds rolled ominously across the bay.  The still humid air began to move as well, bringing with it the smell of ozone.  The weather report warned of thunderstorms but for us it was the chance to see a great evening show.

As the sky began to flash, we could hear far away rumbling.  So, we picked up speed as we walked back to our car, parked at the water’s edge.   Safely inside the car, we could see the entire expanse of Sturgeon Bay through the windows.  The clouds to the south began to light up with brighter flashes of sheet lightning.  Then the clouds to the north began to send brilliant forks of light to greet the earth.  The thunder rumbled back and forth.

We knew that the electrons in the clouds were attracted to the positive charge of the earth.  As the negative charge made its way to the earth, the positive charge moved up to meet it.  Their dramatic union created so much electrical energy that light was produced and the heated air created the thunder that made its way to our ears some time after the light.

This exchange of electrons restores the electrical balance between earth and sky.  Our atmosphere is made up of 78% nitrogen but the nitrogen atoms have three electron bonds between them, making it so stable that we can’t use the nitrogen we inhale even though we need nitrogen to make proteins.  The plants can’t use it either. 

It takes a great deal of energy to break these bonds which is exactly what lightning has.  As the electrical current moves through the air, it knocks electrons from the nitrogen atoms.  Then the nitrogen atoms can combine with oxygen and hydrogen to form nitrates which are washed to earth with the rain that follows the lightning.  Plants can then synthesize these nitrates into proteins which can be used by animals and humans.  Lightning provides about twenty per cent of the nitrogen to the soil every year. 

Lightning also produces ozone which as we know, shields all of us from harmful ultraviolet light from the sun.  That’s why you can smell ozone as a thunderstorm approaches.

So, by restoring electrical balance, new materials are liberated that can be used to create life and materials are created that will protect us. And it is estimated that lightning hits the ground one hundred times a second worldwide, or over eight million times every day.

As we watched the lightning strike over and over, more cars came to the water, their occupants drawn by this Saturday night spectacle.  The wind picked up and the rain began.  Eventually the rain obliterated the view except for bright flashes and loud cracks.  I thought about all that nitrogen being washed to earth and into the lake where the plants could use it to create proteins that animals and fish would eat.  And I would eat local plants and fish and meat.  The lightning was bringing life to us all.

For some people the storm would have been terrifying and they would have hidden in their homes. But I kept thinking about how the storm was restoring balance.   Earth and Sky knew their ancient dance so well.  It was big, it was cosmic, it was bright and loud.  There was nothing subtle or half-hearted about electrons rejoining their positive counterparts.  I could almost see the Thunderbirds of the Anishinaabe in the clouds sending healing energy to the people.  And I could feel that healing, that life giving, that beauty in my own body as the water and fire came from the sky that summer’s night.