Sunday, August 28th 2005
Finally rain fell today. Like a welcome opening of the sky, like a good cry. Things are quieting and coming into focus in a new way. Vision is clearing and the hot blur is fading into the settle of orange leaves and curls of madrona bark on the street.
A couple of days ago I just lay in a field and watched it all fall. Seeds, feathers, whisps of dry leaves, petals, stems. It felt like a different kind of rainfall, like heaven was dropping little bits of nature everywhere. This is how miracles descend into our lives. We often just need to lay down long enough and breathe, so that we can feel them. Or even choose them.
I am not afraid of harvest…though the idea of it catches in my chest sometimes. The immensity of life’s constant offering of beauty, even layered over the most painful times. The intensity of the pleasure of watching the things you have dreamed of unfold, or of the yearning for them that brings them life.
We are meant to be met with such grace, at every turn. The challenge is finding it and holding our focus there…even if it is a tiny diamond in a vast street of waste. We are meant to be able to lay back into a field and lose ourselves entirely in the smell of the earth and the touch of the sky.
When it has been a long time we decide not to visit anymore, but nature always waits for us…to give us our purest reflection, and to hold us. This autumn ask yourself where it is safe to fall, and what you hope will fall from the sky with that surrender.
