Picture the lightening strike at night hitting a mountain and the shocking crack of thunder that shakes us even though we expected it. It arouses and excites us. It creates a visual division, cutting down across the panorama. This symbol expresses a force that has been building, perhaps against an obstruction, and suddenly explodes into our lives. Nature will find a balance and harmony of forces, but sometimes it does it it in sudden and shocking way. We can become complacent and inactive at times and only a shock to disrupt our lethargy can awaken us. Sometimes change comes in fast revolution rather than by steady evolution. Sometimes this arousing force can come in a subtle form from a teacher, parent or friend, as a quiet comment that shakes us to the core. Sometimes it can come as a serious health scare, an illness, accident or opportunity out of the blue, that makes us suddenly take stock and change our thinking or course.
See how the trees gently rustle, the waves of the lake lap against the shore line and the full sails of the boat drive it along. What you don’t see of course is the wind. There are many unseen energies that drive us along. We see the results but not the force. If the the thunder shocked us into getting started, it is the wind that keeps us going. We will often need to change direction, make continuous adjustments to catch the wind and get the best from it as we move forward, but we learn how to do this as we go.
The invisible forces are most often internal. What can propel a business man to build an industrial empire, when others would settle for a good living, might be an unseen and unfulfilled need. What drives a campaigner to change things might be a vision of how things could be or a repulsion of how they are.
It is the wind creating waves that enables us to understand the place of rhythm in change. As there is a right time to catch a wave, there is a right time to begin any endeavour, a right time to pursue a goal, a right point in our growth to attempt a new stage.
We need both the shock of thunder to get us past our inertia and the wind to maintain our momentum.
