Month: June 2023

A Ramble about Rain

It’s hot here, though New Mexico is cooler than Texas. (Yes, you can take that as a double entendre.) With temps around 100 to 05 for a week, we want rain. Even a light sprinkle smells heavenly, and a small rainstorm invites a bigger one, moistening the air enough that the next time the clouds feel heavy, more rain will reach the ground, not evaporate and hover in shaggy trails of virga.

The following tricks provoke the clouds:

Walking without an umbrella when the sky looks promising. Most people here enjoy getting rained on, so this isn’t a sacrifice.

Watering fruit trees. If my neighbor and I water on the same day, this is even more effective.

Washing cars. This is not a decision to make lightly, since it uses water, and therefore should be done on rare occasions. However, if I get my car washed on the same day my neighbor and I both water fruit trees, rain is almost guaranteed, regardless of the forecast. All cars in New Mexico are covered with a thin layer of desert dust at all times, except immediately after washing. A heavy monsoon will wash one side of your car if the wind is right, but in general, rain will speckle and smear the dust even if you don’t drive through a puddle.

Some people get so excited about rain they drive fast and splash through the giant puddle that fills the intersection of Marr and Clancy in Truth or Consequences.

A big fuzzy blob of orange and pink sunset, hazy with rain, reflected in Lake Clancy tonight. A reward for all those rain provocation tricks.

The Pause

When I catch myself pushing on and on, from one task to the next, I’ve intuitively begun to pause in between and do nothing. A few silent seconds of breathing and gazing at whatever’s in front of me changes everything. Then I carry on with greater equanimity and mindfulness.

Teaching yoga, I bring students back to a neutral pose between more challenging ones,  revisiting tadasana between warrior poses or dandasana between seated twists. In stillness and symmetry, we can feel the aftereffects of the previous asana.

Pausing my run for a sip of water at the top of a hill, I discovered the clouds in the north were no longer distant but moving in and thundering, bringing the imminent blessing of rain to the desert. A multitude of yuccas’ spikes of bell-like blossoms stood out, green-white against the blue-gray sky.

The space between each breath, neither inhalation nor exhalation; the space between each thought, neither this thought nor that; the airborne space between each running step; the pause between lightning and thunder; the line breaks in poems, the rests in music; the dark sky between the stars, the blue sky between the clouds. Sacred space.