Dancing Through the Lightning Strikes
The other day, I was listening to Opalite, and when the line came, “But my mama told me, it’s alright, you were dancing through the lightning strikes”…something in me paused.
It was such a simple lyric, but it struck something deep, almost ancestral. And suddenly, I remembered: I was born in a storm too. It was 1985, the night Hurricane Gloria swept through Massachusetts. My mother has always told the story, how the winds howled outside while new life began inside, but I’d never felt the poetry of it until that moment. The lyric connected the dots.
It made me think about how our elements follow us, how the conditions of our arrival sometimes foreshadow the way we’re meant to move through life. Tesla was born during a lightning storm, and when the midwife saw it as a bad omen, his mother said, “No, he will be a child of the light.” I think I understand that now.
Being born in a hurricane doesn’t mean I was born into chaos. It means I was born through motion, through light, through change, through energy that refuses to stay still. It means transformation has always been my native language.
That realization has been sitting with me all week as I continue building Thrivewell. My days are full of structure and systems, finalizing our main POS setup, organizing inventory, preparing for the Natural Living Expo, and laying the groundwork that will hold this dream upright. It’s deeply practical work, yet beneath it, there’s a current, something alive moving through it all. The work feels guided, like each new step already knows where it belongs.
Maybe that’s the storm energy at play again, motion finding form.
A few mornings ago, Jupiter stood directly overhead, the planet of expansion and faith, steady and radiant. This week, Mercury moves into Sagittarius, the sign of truth and vision, shifting us from reflection into expression. And by week’s end, we’ll arrive at Samhain, the Celtic new year, a sacred time to clear, bless, and begin again.
I’ll be spending that day at the Hub, cleansing and offering gratitude before construction begins, an act of renewal that feels perfectly timed. Jupiter’s guidance above, Mercury’s voice awakening, and the storm-born girl below, building her sanctuary from both structure and spirit.
And as I was reflecting on all of this, I looked up from my desk and saw the picture that has hung on my wall for years, the one with the woman surrounded by dragonflies and the words:
“They whispered to her, ‘You cannot withstand the storm.’ She whispered back, ‘I am the storm.’”
It’s been with me so long that I’d almost stopped really seeing it. But now, I feel the truth of it in my bones. I wasn’t meant to withstand the storm. I was meant to remember that I am it, that I was born from wind and light and transformation, and that everything I create carries that same force.
Maybe that’s the real lesson of this season, that magic isn’t something we summon, it’s something we remember. And that when we build from that place of knowing, even the most ordinary tasks, a spreadsheet, a plan, a sweep of the floor, become sacred acts of creation.
So as this week unfolds, I’m honoring both the grounded and the divine, the planning and the pulse, the work and the wonder.
If you’re building something of your own right now, a dream, a home, a new self, I hope you can feel it too. The quiet hum beneath the surface reminding you: you were never meant to just survive the storm. You were born to be its light.
With gratitude and grace,
Kelley