Violent Storms: Bike Traveling Michigan

Brimley, Michigan, Upper Peninsula on Lake Superior

The waves tunnel in from the great Superior, tossing giant logs to the shore like minuscule twigs. The wind is a thick, cold current and if you remember the storm that passed through just minutes before, you would be right to believe in the fierce destruction of nature.

But in that tiny sliver of orange glow fading under once raging clouds, there is a whisper that comforts, reminding that things that were once appalling can soon turn to magic. And in the drastic shock of contrast, I am utterly uprooted, and forced to see that I am just as much a part of nature as it is a part of me. We all are. We can not disconnect ourselves from this truth.

Yet we try. We try to formulate an image of our life that encapsulates beauty and hides the shadows. We try to pretend we know the answers and we clutter this planet with noise. We ostracize ourselves from others and even our own internal being because we are scared to death to see the real storm inside of us. But it is there, raging inside each of us like the hail, the rain, the strong winds. We are made of the same dust of the sky.

Our phones, screens, busy lives, they keep us from our own intuition. They are escapes from the darkness within and distractions from the one and only personalized journey we’ve got in this world. The beauty in the sun tells me to wake up. To see that I can’t hide from the wild nature within. The violent storms of doubt, insecurity, fear and evil are all a part of me. But I’ll never see the sun beam in radiant colors if I don’t know what it takes to get there.

​It’s time to listen. Listen to the leaves clap in the forest, to the quiet whip of a bird’s wings, to the pounding thrust of a wave. Somewhere in, or after all of that is a quiet voice- that is our own, let us listen.