what did our ancestors think during a thunderstorm? 

i think they were afraid. the sky was screaming and burning, and they hid in caves, out of the rain, in the hopes that the cold would not reach them. they must have been terrified, terrified of the water, terrified of the thunder, but they stepped out under the lightning and told their children look. 

it is awful. it is terrifying. but see, it is beautiful, is it not? 

i think they loved thunderstorms, when they saw them. 
i think so because they told stories of gods draped in dripping clouds, dancing across a blazing sky, and they made up reasons for their laughter and anger. 

the storm-dancer leaps to catch rabbits, the sky mourns their sister sea, a hammer forges the stars and the sparks fly 'round

i think we loved thunderstorms because we love the moon and wolves and waterfalls and we turned fire into a center to tell our stories by gilded light, turned a destruction into a life, and that's what humans do, right? 
we find stories. we find reasons. the universe doesn't make sense, but we try to make it make sense.
how odd. how futile. how wondrous. 

love the thunderstorm, the first humans told their children, and i look back and answer, we always have.