I woke up achy, tired, and lazy. I heard rain falling outside my window. I looked at my tablet and noticed I had slept in. It was 5:40am. I usually start my day at 5:00am with meditation and a little yoga. Today wasn’t going to be a swim day at the YMCA, either.
Today feels like a pause day. A day with few expectations. A day to watch the rain and listen to it hitting the leaves on the trees, the roof, and going down the gutter.
After I did a little chanting to calm my mind and be in a place of receptivity, I made myself ready to meditate and invite Sri in for a conversation. I sat cross legged on my yoga mat and pulled out a pen and paper.
A very dear friend and mentor taught me to clear my mind with saying “One” in my mind after I inhaled a long breath, and then saying “One” again in my mind after I exhaled all my breath. After about three long breaths, my mind felt pretty blank.
I then imagined forming a giant soap bubble suspended in the air in front of me. It glistened with all these swirling colors you find in bubble bath bubbles which are beautiful and mesmerizing. Then, I breathed in, imagining the breath coming in through the top of my head. When I breathed out, I imagined it coming out of my heart and expanding the bubble. I continued with this. After about ten breaths, the bubble before me in my imagination was large enough for me to sit in comfortably. I imagined myself moving into this bubble, and leaving my ego behind. There I sat in my God bubble.
I thought about calling in Sri to continue our discussion on competition, power, lack, scarcity, duality, fear, and many other things that churned up in me, but all I was pulled to at the moment was the rain. I wondered if I could talk to the rain instead today.
I said a little phrase I was taught to connect to anything. Here, I am connecting with the rain. “I am you, you are me, we are on eternally. Now I see what God sees.”
I imagined I was the rain, the cloud, falling, blessing, washing away a film of pollen that seemed to coat everything. I imagined as the rain I was blessing the gardens, trees, and lawns. I imagined birds singing and splashing in puddles created by the rain. I felt a calm, nurturing motherly love.
I imagined the rain falling, running in rivulets into a stream a short distance from my house. Then I imagined I was the rain and water that trickled into the stream, then was the water going down the stream over rocks and into the state park near my home. That park used to belong to a coal mining company, and soon after a tragic accident where several miners died, the land was donated to the city to become a park. It has seven trails and sits on over 270 acres. This park then is a ravine, or hollow, as folks back in my Midwest town would call it. The park is perfect for allowing the rain to cascade in dozens of tiny streams down to the main stream below.
I feel the rain is blessing the land, especially after the coal mining events and devastating major floods that happened the past 100+ years in the area. I imagine the rain today is full of love and wet kisses.
Now it’s time to snuggle up with a cat in a big chair and work on a knitting project as I continue to look at on the rain. Rainy days have their place.