Rain

When is the right moment to begin the journey to a better place?

I was looking out of the window at the harsh, bone dry late summer landscape when I noticed that it had started to rain, very lightly. If I looked hard enough, I could just see the tiniest droplets of water, hardly more than mist, hanging in the air and falling, imperceptibly on the gasping, bone -dry land. As I sat there, I became aware that I could hear the occasional ‘drip’ as water collected and dropped. Then deep in the hedge I saw a little blackbird flapping and preening in delight in the small relief the moisture brought.

I found myself thinking about deserts, notably the Karoo Desert of my South African childhood and how just one or two showers in a year are enough to carpet an otherwise seemingly dead landscape with the most breathtaking flowers, bringing out hordes of gentle pollinating insects and tiny shy geckos all of whom had been waiting for that very moment.

So, I sat a little longer and wondered what I should make of this thought – and this is what I came up with.

Sometimes we wilt. We don’t have access to what we need and, like the plants with their brown leaves, we wilt and begin to give up hope. Sometimes it looks like we die a little, going so deep into our discomfort, not knowing how to get what we need. Almost like that plant losing hope in a bone-dry landscape, unable to uproot and go find the water it needs and forced to bide it’s time and cling onto life just long enough for the day to come where this fine mist gives it just enough for life and hope to start up again.

And that’s when it turns.

Right in front of me, over the course of half an hour or so, the harsh, depressing, dry, lifeless, dusty landscape softened. An optical illusion I know but my eyes became more aware of the greens and less oppressed by the browns as the moist air seemed to soothe everything it touched. Small flying critters began to buzz excitedly around, searching for the flowers they knew would soon come because life had started again.

One small, tiny thing had changed and suddenly all sorts of things seemed possible.

And so it might be for you. Perhaps one tiny thing has shifted in your life and softened the soil around your little roots. Maybe you start to feel the almost uncomfortable prickle of life, hope, optimism starting to move through your body. You think, like the plant does, of the tremendous, almost impossible, effort that it’ll take to shoot out your little flower or to reach once more for the life that you crave, a life where your needs are better met and you can begin to truly flourish. But somewhere deep down you know that, for now, you’ve got enough just to make a start. You’ve made it through the drought, you’re still here.

And now, tiny step followed by tiny step, you start your journey to that better place.

Now is your moment.