High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘rain’

To pause, pulling all your awareness into this swiftly flowing now, to open yourself to its beauty, is to stand on the threshold of all truth.

This moment, with its pink dogwood floating in the sky, with robins singing, even in the rain, holds all the goodness we could ever hope to know.

Here, all the mysteries are written plain.  Here, all the secrets are revealed.

Hush now; listen to the soaring song. Drink its essence.  Breathe in its love.

All the sounds are liquid and deafening.  The pouring rain beats on the tree bark, on the melting leaves.  It plunks into the pools gathered in the hollows of the ground, the round ripples leaping in tiny waves.

I splash through it to the bank of the green, swollen creek and its roar rises to meet the falling rain.  Even the drenched air cannot mute it, though it wraps itself, cloud-like, around every twig and fills all the spaces.

The light is like ground pearls, milky and luminescent.  It laughs as it rides the rushing waters, as it slides down the naked braches and over the leathery surface of the leaves.

In town, people hurried along beneath black umbrellas, their shoulders hunched, their eyes cast down to the drab sidewalks, blind to the rivers of light that ran down the gutters.

But here, the colors glow, and the world is raining beauty.

October’s bright hues are faded, a brilliant stain in memory’s store.  The leaves rain down.  The skies are gray.

Squirrels scurry to gather the harvest of hickory nuts, walnuts and acorns to tide them through the winter.  The snow could come now, any day.

In the fields, the corn is faded, too, its thick green leaves turned to paper, its cobs hanging heavy, waiting.  Soon the great machines will roll through to collect them, their engines purring into the night, their headlights piercing the darkness.

The moment holds a poignancy.  Another round of seasons decends into frozen winter’s stillness.

Yet October is not quite ready to bid us farewell.  Even in this owl light, she glows with a lingering beauty.

Nestled beneath the ferns at the base of the great pine, the little mushrooms hummed in contentment.

They were happy for the rich soil that fed them and for the soft drizzle that had been falling throughout the day.  It was, they thought, perfect mushroom weather.

High above them and just to the west, a crew of elves had spent the day painting the last leaves of the mighty oak.  It was their final assignment for the season, and although they adored the way the burgundy rust color spread itself across the leathery leaves , they were tiring.

It had been a busy season and they had worked long hours.

Just as they were finishing the last bough, the wind turned cold and whisked in a driving rain.

“We’ll never make it home before dark in this weather, Eddie said to his crew.  Let’s see if we can’t find a cozy place to spend the night.”

The rain made it hard to see, but after a bit Freddie, Eddie’s brother, saw them.  “Look!” he cried.  “Mushrooms!”

The elf crew dashed through the cold, wet rain and collapsed, laughing at their mad dash.  “Check it out!” Freddie said as he spied the seed-laden pine cone lying right outside their little camp “Dinner!”

After they stowed their buckets and brushes and feasted on the seeds, the elves snuggled into the soft bed of pine needles, relaxed into the hum of the mushrooms and the sound of the pouring rain and began crooning their favorite elf songs.

“Oh, what a fine thing it is,” sighed Eddie as they all drifted off to sleep, “to complete a good day’s labor and to have a place of rest.”

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October washes in on a cold rain, sweeping our leafy dreams of summer to the edges of the road.

Because it is Saturday, we can burrow for a while beneath our blankets of denial.  But only for so long; the day’s tasks call.

Our toes want socks.  Our shoulders want sweaters.

We peer out the rain streaked windows drinking coffee that tastes like heaven.

We imagine the feel of cold drops on our faces and gather umbrellas and jackets in our minds.  We search for excuses to delay, but the clocks deny them.

At the bottom of our cups, the coffee is thick with sugar. Savoring its taste, we steel ourselves and head off into the rain, powering up the day’s slick hill in low gear.

“The pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.” ~Edgar Allan Poe

The woods are drenched in silence as I climb, the ferns lying flat against the earth, having been laid low by morning’s heavy rain.   And although the rain ceased hours ago, the sun is still burrowed in deep clouds, its light filtered and subdued.

The air is cooled and filled with mystery and I breathe quietly, lest I disturb the holiness that surrounds me.   The subtle hues of summer’s waning days pour into my eyes, washing away the veil of thought that blinded me to their beauty.

And seeing it, I become as still and alive as the trees and breathe with them, watching a yellow leaf float down to nestle among the mushrooms and moss as if it were some rare bird returning to its nest.

The clouds came barreling in like a gang of high riding cowboys hot on the trail of horse thieves,  with thundering hooves and blazing six-guns shooting lighting across the sky.

Cats and kids skedaddled for home and the clouds grew bigger than mountains.  Women dashed out to secure the lawn chairs.  Men ran to roll up the windows of their trucks.  Roofers stopped nailing.  Mowers stopped mowing.  Whole picnics disassembled, leaving the foraging ants in dismay.

The wind washed the sky with inky blackness, drowning the light.  Trees bent, their branches a frenzy of whipping limbs. And then the rain came, pelting the ground with a fury.

We watched through windows as the world melted down their panes in rivers of gray, the whole house quaking in the roaring wind.  For an hour the thunder crashed around us.  Rain ran in torrents down the road.

Then it stopped.  And we stepped outside into a world of shimmering light as if we were emerging from a dream.

I stared at the lilac, its leaves dressed in pearls.  Birds began singing.  And in the distance, I caught the sound of thundering hooves riding across the eastern sky.

So here comes Angie Lou dragging that thick old worry bag.  She thumps it wearily up the steps and plunks down on the porch in the rocker next to Grandma’s.

“What you got there, Angie?” Grandma asks, as if she didn’t know.  “Looks kinda heavy.  You want some fresh squeezed lemonade?”

“I don’t know,” Angie says, opening the bag and hauling out a gray rag of worry.  “My stomach’s been kinda achy the past couple of days.  Maybe I’m getting an ulcer or something.”

But she accepts a glass of ice water and Grandma sets it down next to the little  vase of wild flowers on the wrought iron table.  She’s brought a small plate of cookies she baked earlier, too, while it was still cool.

Angie bites into one of the cookies, catching a falling chocolate bit with her tongue.  “I shouldn’t be eating this,” she says.  “I think I’m putting on weight,” she says,  “I’ll end up fat as a house like Aunt Liz.”

Grandma just looks at Angie’s bony hips and smiles.  A cardinal whistles from a nearby tree, and she says, “Hear that redbird?  See?  He’s right up there on the second branch.”    Angie glances toward the tree and then reaches into her bag.

“I hope a coyote didn’t get Sox, “ she says.  Sox is her cat.  “He’s been gone for two days now,” she says.  “Ben says he’s seen tracks out near the pond.”

“Oh, honey,” Grandma says, “That old cat’s been gone far longer than two days.  He knows his way around.  He’s probably got himself a new girlfriend.  Say, are you going to the fair this afternoon?”

“I wanted to,” Angie says, looking up from her rag pile and scowling.  “But I think the truck’s getting a soft tire.  And besides, it looks like it might storm.”

Grandma glances at the dramatic heap of clouds passing by.  They’ve been sailing past since morning, painting the hills with patches of deep green.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she says to Angie Lou.  “It’s like my mother used to tell me.  Clouds are like worries.  The thicker they are, the more shadows they cast.  But most of the time, they just float right on by.”

She pauses a little, rocking slowly.  “Nope,” she says quietly, “I don’t think it will storm.  Dark clouds don’t always mean rain.”

Oh, July!  Must you go so soon?  You, with the lush, full summer in your arms?  You, with long days full of sunlight and thunder?  Must you go?

What carefree hours you gave us, painting the illusion that we, and you, would stretch on forever.  We spent whole days of leisure celebrating your song.

And my, how the children loved you!  How they played!  You spent them completely, sending them home with faces caked with dust, their sleepy eyes gleaming and wanting more.

And we played, too, every chance we got, with all the loved ones we could gather around us.  We stretched out on your beaches and lawns.  We bathed in your oceans and rain.  We watched your fireflies dance in the treetops like stars.  We pretended we were young again, and those who were young believed they would be so always.

You etched fine memories on our hearts, July.     You made the mad world stand still for a while and we believed all time was ours and that we would go on forever.

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Even though there is rain, and because there is rain, let us sing songs for springtime.

Let us sing songs just because there are songs and because we have voices to sing them.

Even though we are but small birds, and because we are small birds, let us sing.

Let us sing even though our voices are small and din of the world overwhelms them.

This is the season of promise and hope.  Let us sing, even though it is raining.