“Skirmishes Upon the Summertime Skyline”: Thunderstorms, Nature, and the Reality of the Metaphorical vs. the Concrete

You know the feeling…that telltale feeling—the “electricity in the air.” The broiling, brightly clear sun-drenched canvas of day transmutes into a cold and shadowy atmosphere of night. An atmosphere of imminent warfare that hinges restlessly upon its heels creeps in and pervades the air.

Dark clouds…the occasional rumble…leaking droplets of precipitation. Then…suddenly…that great vault, once a calm and inviting blue, explodes with jagged, violent bolts. The bolts tear through the sky like a hunter’s knife through a prey animal, and then strike ferociously in all directions. The lightning foams at the mouth with rage…swiftly, thoroughly, aimlessly, and unapologetically blasting its fury down upon the earth. If it must split a tree trunk open and ignite an inferno or zap a person dead, it will. Lightning is unstable and unbridled. It doesn’t check itself or weigh its options; it simply strikes!

Its governing parent…the stable but shifting, nebulous cloak…. grumbles and growls and scolds disapprovingly. Thunder will maintain its position— a fixed and low-lying position, but an assertive one, nonetheless. The roaring clouds speak with a severe and commanding voice. They will split the heavens above open with their divine sovereignty if need be and shake the foundations of buildings below to make their point. Their dominion and authority will not be challenged. They will frighten the petulant, disorderly, and disobedient into compliance if need be.

And then the rain falls. Soft and steady. Refreshing the tumultuous atmosphere…cleansing it of its fiery combative energy…allowing the natural order of things to be restored. Rain elicits contemplation and thoughtfulness and hope.

Obviously, apostrophizing the weather is nothing new. Since the dawn of humanity, people have given human attributes to the weather and the earth and other animals besides us. Every civilization from every corner of the globe made a god/goddess of thunder and lightning, the ocean, the forest, fertility and reproduction, mortality, agriculture, the stars above, life and death, and the seasons below. People divinely prefigured experiences as well—joy, sorrow, chaos, and order. Names like Osiris, Isis, Seth, Marduk, Zeus, Poseidon, Diana, Persephone, Thor, and Loki should all sound familiar. Why did they anthropomorphize nature?

The standard reason is of course that they lacked the comprehensive scientific knowledge we possess nowadays. They knew nothing about atoms, DNA, bacteria, neurotransmitters, pressure systems, gravity, electro-magnetism, or astronomical phenomena. The very notion that the earth and its non-human inhabitants also possessed distinct emotions and personalities seemed perfectly reasonable. The geography of the cosmos was one of choices and decisions and actions…not protons, neutrons, and molecules.

The famous modern-day psychologist and meteoric public figure Dr. Jordan Peterson has repeatedly spoke of this existential phenomenon. “Reality ultimately consists not of ‘matter,’ but ‘what matters’” (I’m slightly paraphrasing him). What humans ultimately value…what moves us…what prompts our emotions and our decisions and our actions and our memories and our imaginations and our dreams…is Darwinian and experiential. Not Newtonian and corporeal. It is sadness and joy…perdition and redemption…heaven and hell. It is ultimately “religious” in nature. What matters isn’t the stage and its props but the drama that unfolds upon it. “All the world’s a stage, and we are all merely players,” William Shakespeare once famously wrote.

But the two dominions of being must overlap somewhere…mustn’t they? The rubber eventually hits the road. The Judeo-Christian tradition zeros in upon this concept with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Whether or not you believe in the supernatural or the afterlife or the redemption of humanity by a single, self-sacrificing representation of the divine, you cannot deny that actual crucifixions very much existed. They were bloody and brutal and, yes, excruciating (hence the origin of that word). There is something so stridently and clarifyingly grotesque about a crucifixion…so concretely realistic…that it strikes away any confusing vicissitudes that would otherwise condemn us. Fire has that capability, as does water and wind.

Its presence is discrete and transparent. It can devour or redeem us on that basis alone, and, therefore, it is supremely terrifying. The conflagrations that ate up Canadian selvage this past spring (producing voluminous southward-drifting clouds of smoke) captured our attention for that reason. So did the submersible that ventured down to visit the Titanic. Before we knew about its implosion, we imagined the unimaginable…lost in the dark, infinite abyss of the ocean floor, dying as we slowly suffocated. What a horrible experience to imagine!

Events such as these come without the safe space of doubtable nuance. They are real and simple and all-encompassing and eternal. They exist in that “overlap zone” where the rubber meets the road. At some point in history, someone having to venture across “stormy seas” or having to climb “impossible mountains” wasn’t merely an abstraction. Some real, flesh-and-blood person had to wrestle with a real, flesh-and-blood lion or crocodile. They had to occupy that literal space to bring the proverbial one into fruition. The question, though, lingers— is one space better or worse? Would you rather climb a proverbial mountain or a real one? What’s more dangerous- a lion in the courtroom or a lion in the savannah? What is more valuable- the concrete or the abstract?

Perhaps it is worth making a case for the usefulness of the “overlap zone.” We’ll return to the original phenomenon- your run-of-the-mill summertime thunderstorms. Why do thunderstorms occur? Ultimately hot and cold air collide. That discrepancy of course produces conflict and violence. Metaphorical conflict and violence? No. The real versions of each. Conflict and violence without blood and bones and DNA and an animating conscious pulse, but conflict and violence, nonetheless. Bioelectricity propels us. Electricity propels lightning. The low, grumbling authoritative voice of the thundering clouds mirrors that of the no-nonsense head of the household. And, yes, rainfall is feminine. Rainfall flows freely and fluidly, cleansing and rejuvenating the fatal, conflict-laden atmosphere. Are teardrops merely analogous to rain? Or does the material presence of water in both circumstances provide a layer of existential consolidation?

The layers of motion, and the very principles of motion that play out in real time, scale up and down to every level. Is it merely a coincidence that a galactic nebula mirrors the image of the human eye or that veins that branch endlessly throughout our bodies parallel those of a tree-leaf or a river-system? Lovers brawl and reconcile. Parents and children brawl and reconcile. Nations brawl and reconcile. But in every case, the energy of emotional truth that pushes them into their frays will, with hope, push them through to the serenity of the other side. When the thunderstorm resolves, we return to the great outdoors, pick up the fallen branches, and resume our normal, peaceful summertime activities.