What benefit this rainy day?

Four year forecast: rain, a lot. Severe Weather Advisory underway.

Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash

Many, if not most people look upon a cold and rainy fall day with a sense of dread. Some may even say “Yuck, such bad weather; such a bad (ugly) day today.” Thereby insuring the inner weather will soon match the outer weather.

I’m proudly not many and not most people—when it comes to weather anyway.

Pluviophile (noun)

A pluviophile is a person who enjoys rain and rainy days, and is fascinated by the sounds and sights of rain. The word comes from the Latin words pluvia, meaning "rain", and imber, and the Ancient Greek word -philos, meaning "dear, beloved". It was first recorded in English in the early 1990s.

Pluviophile; AKA…me.

There are others out there, too; of this I know.

Since November 5, it’s been feeling like the weather, inner and outer, is dark and depressing. But that’s when I have forgotten that I control both my inner weather and how I perceive the outer weather. Being human, I still fall into the trap of dread at times. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to understand at a deeper level how to incorporate practices into my life that ease the perceived burden of poor weather.

I love the rain. And I love walking in the rain. When one lives in Seattle, if you don’t learn to love walking in the rain, you’ll never go outside to walk. (Shh…don’t tell anyone, but it really doesn’t rain as much here as our reputation makes it sound. But let’s keep that between you and me. For now, just tell everyone it rains all the time in Seattle.)

That’s the set up for what I wanted to say on this cold fall Sunday in my neck of the woods.

What I wanted to say

I’m trying not to be too long in down moods. When a down mood strikes, I realize it for what it is—a red flag that I’m perceiving the world in a down way. Projection, in other words.

“Everywhere you look, you see what you are looking for.” ~ Ram Dass

Since November 5, I’ve been doing a lot of down mood projecting. Not healthy. But I see it for what it is. I try not to stay there long.

This past week, I didn’t allow the rain to keep me from my daily walk. Like I said, I do love being outside in the rain. I don’t use an umbrella—for me, it defeats my purpose for being in the rain to begin with.

On this particular day, when my county issued a flood alert area warning, on my walk in the downpour, I noticed quite a few worms on the sidewalk as I walked. Now, a few years ago, I made a pact with my worm friends to “save” them from the sidewalk; so I do. The sidewalk was placed in its place by humans to the detriment of the worms, worms that provide a vital and distinct benefit for the health of soil and, by extension, the health of humans—the worms were just trying to move away from water-filled burrows or saturated soil. Until they found themselves on impenetrable sidewalks. Worms on sidewalks are trapped—if you look closely, you can see they try to explore the concrete to see if it will yield so they can burrow. Worms don’t like sidewalks. Worms die on sidewalks—through no fault whatsoever of their own. Through the fault of human beings. WE did that to them. When you know this, if you are an empathic and feeling person, you can therefore feel a deeper, empathetic connection with worms. Don’t laugh and don’t minimize this. Something greater is going on.

So, I do what I can. On this particular walk, I rescued a dozen or so worms from the sidewalk, placing them on a patch of nearby lawn or soil, saying as I continued on “may you be happy and safe, healthy and strong.” And “you’re welcome.” (Because, yes, I imagine they say “thank you.”) After I started to do this as a practice, I began to notice something inside myself—something that science has proven empirically true through the study of the impact altruistic acts have upon a human’s nervous system: I felt better. I felt better about myself, about life in general, and about the world even if the world was on fire. Helping another Being, another Being that has the exact same life force that courses within me, is an altruistic act of compassion. And compassion is a life-affirming and healing practice—not just for the Beings on the receiving end. Turns out, the primary recipients of the benefits of compassion…are the givers themselves.

Those worm’s lives benefitted from my life. Living Beings benefitted from my life. That is very humbling. THAT has meaning.

In a world that seems to lack for meaning right now, saving any life is life affirming.

After that walk this past week, I felt better. And I have worms to thank for it.

Oh…and rainy days.

Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash

~ k

PS: for the record, this same practice I carry into other areas of my life—and I gain the same benefit. If a fly or spider is trapped in our home (trapped because they don’t want to be in our home, the home was just in their way of nature), I gently trap them in a cup and release them outside. Again, it’s a small act, for me. But the benefit is to us both.

Why is it we humans have the instinctual reaction to kill “pests?” Why is it we call them pests to begin with? Every living organism has the exact same life force that we do.

---

When I first started the practice of worm rescue, I wrote the following poem. The act of writing the poem cemented the practice permanently (no pun intended, I don’t think). I can’t not do this anymore—this rescuing of worms, this caretaking of me.

Funny how that works.

It is cold
it is wet
and it is raining
and the sidewalk I walk upon is puddled.

As I travel this path
worms are found here and about
stranded upon the walk
as they attempt
their escape
from the suffering
found in their flooded burrows, holes, and tunnels

only to discover a new kind of suffering
on this hard, unexpected path.

Because I am becoming intimate
with my own brand of suffering
I cannot walk past these beings
leaving them to manage their own plight
by themselves. 
When I do
because I have to or don’t have time
or whatever lame reason
my heart breaks open just a bit farther

and they stay with me awhile.

I am sorry.

Now, when I can,
I stop
and look
and offer support
lifting them gently

(sometimes they struggle against this)

to the nearest flower bed
or patch of grass
or bit of soil
that can become a possible new home
or at least give respite from all the wet
on the impenetrable cement.

If alive I offer
“May you be safe, healthy, and strong
and may you be free from suffering.”

If dead I offer
“May other beings benefit
from the sacrifice of your body.”

And

“thank you.”

In the grand design and full catastrophe of
all of life
maybe this effort is not very
significant.

But I have to know and believe
it is significant at least for this little one,
this fellow being not so different from myself,
and in doing so
know that it is significant for me.

THIS is why we need each other.

Oh, hey…bonus poem imminent!

A Fleeting moment, thankfully.

I looked outside my kitchen window this morning, 
a late-winter, cold, and grey-skied morning—
fog and sticky drizzle,
the decaying leaves from the maple
moulding in place from where I should have raked them—
and had the fleeting thought that
”Geesh, it’s not very pretty outside right now. 
What an ugly day.”

Fleeting because I know better.
And should have known better.

Why does beauty have to be sunny, and lush, and green?
Why does beauty have to be sun-tanning warm outside?
Why does beauty have to require flowers, and unicorns, and sprinkles?
Why does beauty always have to be laughter, and blue skies, and ducks laying their eggs by the pond?
Why does beauty have to be a clean walkway, or a manicured lawn, or the wood pile neatly stacked in readiness for a fire I’ll never lite?
Why does beauty have to be a clean house, 

or

have blonde hair, or blue eyes and white skin with maybe one or two freckles in just the most endearing places 
and perfect teeth?

Who said that was what beauty is?
(and why is it still believed by so many?)

And so I looked outside again
at the barren, 
the grey,
the mist,
and the decaying
cold.


Unimaginable beauty was everywhere.