When rain falls, the gutters run. If it rains for a while, the lawns perk up, the trees drink, the gutters reach out to the nearby Rio Grande, and water brings a spirit of rejuvenation and growth to the land.
Just so does a spirit of knowing enter our lives.
At least in this desert city, we appreciate the rain as it falls, as it gathers into flowing rivulets, occasionally turning the arroyos into rushing torrents, which rise up the sides of concrete arteries as they wend their way to the river, and in a good year to the sea.
We sometimes like to ponder this blue planet which makes rain possible; and then we realize that rain and rivers are part of the great oceans. Without the oceans giving of themselves to the passing winds, when the Sun draws upon waves and salty depths to form clouds, there would be no rain falling on distant mountains, no steams wending their way back home.
Without mountains rising above the plains, who would give the passing clouds a place to land? Without winds to lift the vapors off the surface of the sea and carry it out into the distant hills, there to replenish and nourish–like breath nurtures the far flung cells of my body and my beating heart carries fluids, oxygen and trail mix throughout the far-flung regions of my embodiment–how could I move, aspire, and dream?
Just so does a great knowing travel among us, permeating every thought and feeling and care-worn gesture of kindness.
And we needn’t be too critical of the self (AKA the ego, the one who would control all that passes before its eyes, if it only could). The self is just the one who turns the winch that directs the rain to this field or that, in its own small part of this vast world.
The self is fine, more than fine, when it remembers that it did not create the rain, or the plants and trees that smile at its arrival; it did not create the wind that carries the rain and allows us to breath; it did not create the mountains and fields, the rivers and oceans, or the Sun that stands at the center of our days, and measures out our allotment of years.
Nor does the self reign over the spirit of knowing and understanding, without which all else would be an empty clamor signifying nothing.
Beautifully poetic entry. There is nothing more important than understanding our connection to the elements, and this essay accomplishes that with style
Michael, this is absolutely beautiful writing, with a profoundly simple insight which is the essence of being. Thank you.!
Is that an oblique reference to Shakespeare’s MACBETH at the end? Forgive a little levity, but I have an update from the Elizabethan:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time:
TRAFFIC IS BACKED UP TO PASEO DEL NORTE….
“And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!”
IN THE DARK, CREWS CONTINUE THE CLEANUP OF YESTERDAY’S FATAL ACCIDENT AT CANDELARIA AND IAMBIC PENTAMETER ROADS…..