The Pacific Northwest is well-known for its mountains, waterways, salmon . . . and rainfall.
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Lots of rain, beginning in November and lasting through April . . . usually gentle and drizzly . . . sometimes accompanied by gusty winds, thick fogs and cool temperatures.
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The creek behind our house is flow-roaring; the mossy grass is slippery, and as green as it can be.
Snails and slugs, happy, abundant.
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We’ve just gone through a week of seasonal rainstorms, there’s mud everywhere.
But now the skies are clear and the Eastern snow mountain peaks are glistening in the sunlight.
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It’s to be a short fair-weather window, closing as I write this. Three more days of rain, starting this evening, are forecast.
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This is not a bad thing.
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Truth is, rain is an active spirit of this place, and as Gary Snyder has written, “to know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made of parts, each of which is a whole. You start with the part you are whole in.”
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Pacific moisture, enclosed by the Cascade Mountains, blanketing . . . falling down upon us.
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Such powerful forces at play; upon reflection, how can one not feel insignificant?
Free. Unencumbered.
Primitive even?
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To sit quietly and recognize this . . . to know oneself to be included, an aspect of it, whole within it, brings tears to the eyes.
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Tears.
My tears. Your tears.
Simply more water.
Rejoice.
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Wherever you are, consider your place on the planet; come to know what connects you to it . . . and it to you.
Be thankful for what arises, embrace, then become responsible to it.
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~Neither grief or a broken heart, or fear, precludes you from doing this.