“His countenance was distinguished by cheeks that enhanced the beauty of His alligator-shaped pendants, which outshone lightning. ”

Srimad Bhagavatam 3.15.41

I was at the Sunday Feast and sitting on the lawn in front of the temple talking to Soma and some other devotees. It had started to rain so we moved under a tent that was set up there. Some thunder and lightning was going on but here, on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains, summer thunder storms are common and I wasn’t thinking much about it.

All of a sudden there was a simultaneous explosion and bright flash of light and my hand, which was resting palm downward on the wet grass, felt the tingle of electricity strong enough I instinctively pulled it away. I noticed that Madhupati had suddenly started to dance in ecstasy.

It turned out that a tree about 50 yards (46 meters) from where I was sitting had been hit by lightning (I paced off the distance). Soma had also felt it in his hand and Madhupati had gotten shocked in one leg. He was standing when it hit. I later heard that Dharmakala had seen electricity arcing on a metal tent pole.

The lightning had grounded through a locust tree and shattered it.

Note the burn marks on the fallen part of the tree. It was on 50 feet (15 m) from the side of the temple building.

A shard of the tree was thrown all the way to the temple.

Quite a display of power.

One interesting side note is that the locust tree that was struck was on my list of trees to thin out. It was growing too close to the row of Sweet Gums along side the driveway so needed to be removed. I didn’t want to cut it myself as it had to be dropped very exactly to avoid hitting the Sweet Gums and to not go over the hillside where it would be difficult to cut out the fence posts from it and get the excess for firewood.

Usually I would have Raghu cut trees in that situation as I have more faith in his accuracy dropping a tree then I do my own, but for various reasons quite some time had gone by without the two of us being in the same place at the same time and getting around to that specific tree.

When the lightning struck, the tree broke in the middle and the top fell perfectly. With the shattering, I don’t know if I can get any usable posts out of it, but it was large enough to have needed splitting anyway and it remains to be seen if it split the right size. At worst the top will heat the Deities this winter.

I will leave the stump as I think it is quite interesting and it no longer is competition for the Sweet Gums. I hope no one else decides to cut it down.