Spirit in the Sky

We are deep into the rainy season and it rains at least once most days now. Apparently this is most unusual, and everyone is talking about it. Being English, of course I am used to rain - but not to some of the rain we get here.

Last night I was woken by another thunderstorm. But this one didn't stop, and eventually I got up to stare at it out of the window. For at least an hour and half the lightening flashed, some of it appearing as jagged streaks, but mostly the whole sky just lit up, as if someone was playing with a giant light switch, turning it off and on over and over again. & the thunder was continuous, rumbling around and around overhead but occasionally also coming as deafening crashes, or as a great tearing sound as if the sky was being ripped apart.

It was all quite magnificent, and from the safety of my little house I really enjoyed the spectacle. But then I thought about how I might feel if I were walking along an unlit path between villages in the countryside, and suddenly I understood so clearly how so many of the villagers still believe that the natural world (their world) is inhabited by spirits.

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