When it Rains, It Pours

and when it pours, where does Intention go?

It’s raining in Costa Rica. This video is from the back of the drying area, behind the garage. It looks down into the valley where an amazing river flows, full of waterfalls and swimming areas. When I say rain, I mean it… for hours. The roof is tin, so you can imagine the sound as well.

Where does the rain go? When it rains lightly, the Earth opens it’s cells and becomes a lush pregnant possibility. It swells with life, bursting from every crack and in the dark as in the light. When it pours, not so much. This is an ode to my kinfolk back in Appalachia. If you turn on any news, you will know what the hollars of NC, etc have endured in this 1000 year storm. The Earth is responding. It’s simply answering our laissez-faire, ‘there is plenty of time to repair the planet and what’s the big deal and who are you voting for…’, right?

Photo is at the Biltmore Estate in November of 2022, which is now ‘closed until further notice.’ Photo by the author.

Oh no. The immediacy of this rain tells me different. It’s not now, it’s right now. It could wash the whole building away, the whole town, the whole valley. Your life, mine, and certainly those who have suffered in this have watched as images of your family at the beach went down stream as you realize that you have no flood insurance and that your home and indeed your whole life are about to go sideways and that you are essentially homeless, perhaps jobless and indeed, ‘over your head.’

The question that this leads me to, is what will we do, where will we go and how will we respond when it comes for us? Has is already for you? Does your intention mean a hill of beans or is it a life raft and Coast Guard airlift when you need it. Your intention is your path, your way through not that which happens to you, but how you respond to it. This is not about prepping all end-of-world style, (although not a bad idea, all things considered), this is about the scale of life. From day to day, from moment to moment, even. What’s your plan, Stan?

Your intention is ‘how you want this to go for you’, exactly when you do not know what will happen, when it will happen and how really (or really, really) bad it will become for you, and for those you love and care for. Hang on to your intention. No one and no circumstance can take it from you. Guess what? It does not matter if your intention does not come to fruition. What? Yes. It’s that you have one in the first place. It’s a posture about how to be when the feces hits the fan, man. We know that everybody in the place is going to need a shower… just how much is a question.

What is your intention? For today, for the rain? For the flood, the fire, the war, the famine? What matters is where your head tells your heart to be. You can handle anything at this Table. Just don’t overdo it on the mash potatoes, that never ends well.

Jonathan

In my hand, the mightiest and the smallest may come to rest. Photo by the author.