DianmuMother of LightningLightning MotherLady of the Flash
Relationship
The flash that comes before a thing lands
Warning
She shows you what is coming and does not stop it
Resonance
Those who need warning the ill those who have to speak a hard thing
Symbols
The two mirrorsThe flashThe cloudThe leidian characterThe rain
Mythology Summary
Dianmu is the Mother of Lightning, the partner of Leigong, shown with a mirror in each hand — the flash is her mirrors. She belongs to the later popular and Daoist thunder tradition rather than to the classical sources, and popular storytelling supplies her origin: in one telling a woman struck by Leigong by mistake and restored by the Jade Emperor to be his companion, in another a widow punished for wasting rice. That aetiology — the lightning that comes before the thunder so that people can prepare — is a folktale explanation rather than doctrine, and the earliest layers of the Chinese thunder cult do not have her.
Modern Practice
She is approached for warning: before an illness is named, before a business fails, before a hard thing has to be said. The practice is a mirror at the altar, incense, water and salt, and the willingness to act on the warning rather than to ask for it to be cancelled.