Listening to the gently pattering sounds of raindrops kissing the thousands of thirsting leaves in my dry garden, I feel an upwelling of relief and deep appreciation for this rare cleansing. I take a deep breath and expire the remaining tension of grief and sadness that has dwelled within mind and body these past four months of encircling bushfires, the past years of drought. The fires and their smoky exhalations have finally dissipated. The rain feels comforting, reassuring, its gentle sound of flow and pattering wrapping me up safely, yet I intuit that this is more a reprieve than merely slipping back into a previous normal cycle of wet and dry. This is a breather from the desiccation and fiery threat rather than a complete respite.
We are intimately affected by the weather and by the environment of which we are but a physical and energetic extension of. A long duration of drought, heat and fires affects us at every level and for the most part we remain unaware, unable to acknowledge the link between our physical, psychological and spiritual wellness and the desiccation of the world we inhabit. This link for me became more noticeable in December, the hottest month ever recorded with the six hottest average days in the hottest year ever recorded in the warmest decade. I had felt emptied of hope and vitality with each dawning day of dry heat and peasouper smoke filled skies. It wasn’t just the oppressive heat and the stinging in the back of my throat and eyes from smoke but the knowing that this event was Nature’s kick in our collective shins, a reminder of our stupidity and arrogance for ignoring our natural world, a fiery nudge into an era of destabilisation and existential threats.
The sweet rain continues to fall and fall, washing ash into streams and rivers, blanketing life and aquatic worlds into a breathless existence. Even in this sweet providence of water is found the hand of death, a bitter-sweet realisation. Walking through the raindrops I focus my attention on the sensual gift of water rather than the distant abstracted knowing of the decimation of fellow beings in their watery grave. The ashy remains of incinerated life washes into creeks to smother life, deaths entrails creating more death. Despite this knowing, this sadness, I am deeply appreciative of this sensual watery immersion in my immediate world. I still feel the deep grief of life and ecosystems decimated, the anxiety of the coming “new normal”, the cathartic Age of Anthropocene heating in which the inflammation and incineration promises more frequent and intense death. But in this moment I am succoured by the rains soft song and touch.
But as I feel the drops kiss my crown chakra and trickle down to my forehead, throat and chest, I find solace and respite in the intimacy of this enveloping wetness. I feel the upwelling of relief, of grace unfolding into the saturating awareness that fills me. The hope of the rain whispers its message: the Great Disruption we are living through will unfold into the Great Remembering of our deeper nature’s and how to live with nature again. All in good time. I am here, I am present in this moment, observing the flow of feelings, moods and water. Whatever may come, fire, flood or chaos, I can only find the calm and connection in each moment of attentive grace. Once I was desiccated, now I am emptied and filled by the grace of these heavenly tears.