Each Drop of Rain

Image by Anrita1705 from Pixabay

Each drop of rain, a tear shed for those we’ve lost, for those who are in pain, those struggling to just live. For friends who tell me they are beyond heart broken, hanging on by their fingertips. For those who aren’t sure how they’re going to pay the rent and fear the loss of life’s necessities. For all those who wait hours in cars in lines in parking lots to receive a single box of food for the week. For all those hearts in disrepair after years of abuse by those in power. For all of us…

Each drop of rain brings nourishment, is a prayer that falls to Earth, becomes earth, becomes clover and wildflowers that in turn nourish the bees and butterflies. Each drop puddled on asphalt with other drops mirrors the trees and passersby. And each drop that doesn’t draw our prayers into the Earth, evaporates into sky.

Each drop of rain, each tear, each prayer holds the mystery of healing within. The mystery we witness as our heart beats again and again. The movement of blood through our veins. The air we breathe and the fire of each exhale that rises, an offering to the greening world now rained upon.

The Bowl Constellation

 

Image by Lena Helfinger from Pixabay

I can’t see many stars in the night sky here, but I can look out over the valley floor and see hundreds of lights shimmering in the dark, constellations of human activity. The patterns mostly geometrical, match our need for order and straight lines. But sometimes another pattern emerges.

Framed between the houses, a patch of valley floor holds the Bowl constellation. This bowl of lights has two drops of water hovering above it and shimmering water within. It’s the water gathered from the great Water Bearer in the sky. Aquarius pours out his gifts as we enter his age. It’s up to us humans to accept them, use them.

It’s up to me to turn around, look within, find those gifts, and use them, but so often I stop short of really putting myself out there. And I can’t see what’s truly possible because I’ll only know once the results are out there. When others reflect their experience of what I share, then I’ll know what is possible, and it will ripple beyond what I can see.

The light pollution of the city masks the Milky Way, billions of distant stars whose light reaches us when they may be mere memory. But their light pierces the sky still. When it hits the human eye. we become one with the past, with the stars whose dust lives on as us. This moment when past and present meet, inspires. We look up, hold out our bowls to capture gifts from the sky, from the past so we may create the future. Hail to the Water Bearer. And hail to you who honors those gifts.

Spring Waits

 

Image by M W from Pixabay

Spring waits for us beneath the surface. Already something new is stirring. We need only know it is there, know it will rise. The sun and the seed will rise, and along with them, us.

We are what is stirring beneath this lock down, beneath this isolation, beneath sadness, anger, frustration. Within us Spring already is. We know what to do, what we need to bring forth and what we need to leave behind. We know.

And so we wait as the new awaits us.

Welcome to 2021. Welcome to what will be and already is. Welcome.