Mister Rogers ... do you remember Mister Rogers???  He had a special meditation; it went like this:

RainDrops

It rained all last night!  And yesterday!  Good gentle sweet-falling RAIN.  And the sky is still filled with clouds and promise.

If you live anywhere east of the Rocky Mountains, this may mean little to you. But California has not seen rain since early spring; that's a loooong time. We officially fell into drought status in June of this year.  If you've always lived in a place where rain is a year-round occurrence (except when it's snowing), you may have no idea what it's like, the first rain after six months of dryness.  Let me tell you, it smells sweet.

Here, summer fields smell like a spice cabinet.  Native grasses dry up and their essences, no longer clouded by water and chlorophyll, come into full bloom.  But when the first time rain hits those grasses??  It is amazing, and oh so fleeting. Seems like you get to inhale this special aroma only once each year.

I love rain to unseemly excess!  Perhaps, in more verdant parts of the world, the rainy season is a time of dormancy.  Here, it is a break from the unrelenting sun, and it initiates the time when our grasses begin to grow green and lush.  And for me, it is the time my spirits soar, as if I've been hibernating through the summer. For me, life begins now.

Rain!!  This time it's not merely fog overhead, or even mist.  You can feel the trees, the trees, the hills, the birds and wildlife who've all waiting, rise in a song, a tremendous joyous relief!

Why is it the rain smells so sweet?  Maybe it's all those luscious negative ions? 

Research has shown that falling water creates thousands of negative ions by splitting other wise neutral particles of air, freeing electrons to manifest their vitalizing function. These electrons join up with smaller air particles, thus giving them a predominantly negative charge.  According to the experts, positive ions rob us of our good senses and dispositions, while their counterpart, negative ions, enhance them, stimulating everything from plant growth to the human spirit.

As long ago as 1789, a European monk, Abbe Bertholon, speculated that ions exist and affect people. He recorded the responses of medical patients and normal people to changes in the electrical state of the ambient air. More than a century later, in 1899, two scientists named Elster and Geitel proved the existence of ions. Only since the 1930s have researchers been probing their secrets. The minimal amount for optimum human functioning is about 1000/ccm.

Falling water and plants all produce wondrous negative ions, which are said to stream off the leaves of plants, most notably pines and asparagus ferns.  On the seashore, where water is always falling, the ratio of negative to positive ions is approximately doubled, a ratio that human beings respond to most favorably.

We have all experienced this positive effect, regardless of our proximity to waterfalls or the ocean. Every home has a built in, natural ionizer---the shower. Our daily bath rituals are, in effect, the practice of preventive medicine. Waterfalls have always been the favorite habitat of mystics and artists. The inspiration and romance generated at places like Niagara Falls and Yosemite have a direct relationship to the lowering of serotonin levels in the blood, caused by the waves of negative ions from the spray of these falls.

Negative ions promote alpha brain waves and increase brain wave amplitude, which translates to a higher awareness level.

Whatever. 



I am out there running in the rain, dancing in the rain, playing singing in the rain, running in circles arms flapping sending the wildest hottest appreciation up into the universe out towards you.

To you....  Oh, sweet heavens!  You are my friend, mySelf, oh the precious friends I have found on Gaia!   Methinks my heart's been parched too.  You are the gentle rainfall to this heart, in a sweet blessed interconnection of Oneness.  How grateful I am for your presence. 

And the presence of this blessed sweet-falling rain!

                              The Voice of the Rain

And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, and
yet the same,
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
and make pure and beautify it;
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.)

                                                                      Rainer Maria Rilke

flowering rock

A metaphysical war of worldviews has been taking place throughout Western culture during at least the past century.  And at the very center of this disagreement lies the question of the power of consciousness or unseen intelligence.

Largely unrecognized by scientific materialism is the power of thoughts, dreams, intentions, visions, spiritual healing, the power of prayer - all things of etheric invisible stature, stuff outside what is considered "normal." 


I have been reading the work of a fellow Gaian, Jeffrey Mishlove, Ph.D., the creator and host of Thinking Allowed, a weekly public television interview series.  Though he also is licensed as a clinical psychologist, Jeff Mishlove continues to be the only recipient of a Doctorate in Parapsychology from an accredited American university. 
 

Mishlove reminds us that the major dynamic in Western culture during past centuries has been a shift away from a metaphysical understanding of reality to one grounded in physical, rational, material reality.  In the triumphs of our modern society, science and industry flourished.  In our cultural zeal to conquer and control the material world through ever more wondrous technology, we apparently have turned our planet into a giant marketplace.  The conclusion is incontrovertible.  Almost every major social problem this planet now faces, including the desecration of our environment and Mother Earth, derives from such materialism.
 

The opposing worldview, a rising cultural paradigm which is gaining momentum slowly throughout the planet (although too late perhaps to preserve many of its life forms), is the one that most peoples throughout history and in most places on our earth still experience.  In this worldview the universe is replete with intelligence and intelligences, unseen forces and beings or entities of varying density. Native traditions and ancient beliefs always understood that to be "alive" is far more than walking around as a collection of chemicals and electrical signaling.  Our ancestors' beliefs were formed on an intuitive understanding of the power of thoughts and belief and intentions and prayer, relying on a unified energy field that holds everything in the universe in an invisible web.  And at the center:  a luminous ultimate reality or creative principle manifested as divine Light or Love, from which all other reality derives. 

The failure to perceive this reality lies at the heart of the crisis that we now confront.
 

What if we collectively are beginning to recognize a vast and untapped human potential -- the power of thought and belief and intention and prayer -- something essential that might be every person's birthright, not simply that of the gifted master?  What a simple and inexhaustible way to focus our lives, heal our illnesses, alter global perspective!
 

The New Age is not yet born.  Paradigms are not consciously invented.  They evolve as society itself evolves.  A new cultural paradigm encompassing the vastness of the human spirit is rising.

Jeffrey Mishlove writes that:

"...[W]e, as a society, are in a phase of conflict, controversy, and polarization regarding important questions concerning fundamental metaphysical issues.  A new cultural paradigm is in the process of formation.  We must evolve beyond denial.  We must move beyond premature syncretism.  We must move toward honest, authentic integration of the depths within us and the facts before us. ... If humanity, as a whole, is to fully awaken to its own potential, we must all grow in wisdom. Specifically, this means we must learn to practice mental hygiene with regard to our own stream of consciousness -- cultivating positive thoughts and attitudes while eschewing thoughts that deprecate ourselves or any other precious human being.  And we must learn to treat all other people with courtesy and respect." The PK Man, p.265-266

The Jesus of your spirit is inside you now.
Ask that one for help, but don't ask for body-things...

Don't ask Moses for provisions
that you can get from Pharaoh.

Don't worry so much about livelihood.
Your livelihood will turn out as it should.
Be constantly occupied instead
with listening to God.

                                                Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-73)

If we listen to our intuition, to our hearts, to our inner knowing, is that not where the most amazing possibilities for growth and expansion and joy lie?  What if the power of loving intention were stronger than the sword?   We seem to be somehow innately wired to recognize the divine with each one of us (if we but listen to our hearts).  I suspect that love and gentleness and kindness and soothing is what we intended to share with others, one by one, passing it on to ignite other hearts:  a never-ending expanding ripple effect of an eternal loop of giving-and-receiving, the sweet universal interconnection in Oneness.   

So, tell me, what is more important?  Our actions?  Or the thought inspired by and intuited from Divine Energy -- the power of thought and belief and intention and prayer that created that action toward goodness?   

In our deep and sweet universal interconnection, what wondrous possibilities of good beckon us forward. 

Imagine the possibilities!

 

JOY!   Delight.  Deep reverence and appreciation for all whom I have met on Gaia; how you have and are expanding my awareness of who I really am! You send me over the moon!  You send me in delightful soaring to distant galaxies.  You leave me resting in deep peace, with a glowing radiant knowing of the Oneness of us, embraced in All that is Good. Yesssss.  Deep bows.....

Where I am right now??  Come visit! http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Astronomy Today says near the outskirts of the small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602.  Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region. 

The picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.

We are alive.  But what if we were FULLY alive?  Yesss, that's what I wanna be!! 

Not scuttling about half dead, half awake, grumbling, fearing, worrying, shut down, skeered of what-might-be (not that I haven't ever been there, ooooh boy, the stories I could tell).   But I am getting better and better, sharper, keener, focused on having an increased ability to realign, rebalance, go with the flow. 

Something keeps singing to me, you know?, from down there behind my senses---from this vast place of peace and wellbeing and knowing. 

I remind myself now and then (ok ok ok, maybe like constantly) that all it takes to find that Place is to slow down for a moment forpetesake, be quiet, be still....  Quiet that chattering mind that hounds me to distraction with things that needtobedone like Right Now!  But when I am still, breathe deeply, fall back behind those poor overloaded-overcharged-overworked senses, fall into this enormous expanse that so feels so loving...up it bubbles surges:  a wild joyous sense of being fully alive! 

Fully alive in the Now.  Yes.  I wish to hang out in The Now, a perspective from which I can look out and see enormous beauty and kindness:  in nature, in you, in us.  Where luminous promise of all that is Good and possible sings to me, calls to me. 

How grateful, how filled with joy I am to have found my way to Gaia, and you.  We are so in this together.  Peace.  Joy.  Deep bows.

Well, one possible way of reverence is always showering over a bucket.  Water!  A seemingly endless supply, but consider water. Each precious unique drop of water....

I'm mesmerized delighted by the idea that by learning to respect and appreciate water, among all the other natural graces of this world in which we live and thrive and have our being, we can reshape the challenges that face the twenty-first century -- and rejuvenate the planet.  

Some researchers say that water has a memory and carries within it our thoughts and prayers. We ourselves are what, mostly water.  Dr. Masaru Emoto uses high-speed photography to prove that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated throughts are directed toward them.  The photographs of crystals exposed to thoughts such as love, kindness, peace, gratitude are vastly different than those exposed to harsh negative thoughts. 

Imagine.  Imagine!  This is more than just our own individual personal health that can be affected by how we "think."  What if these tiny drops of water, traversing the earth emptying into the seas, carry our prayers thoughts intentions to the rest of the world.  WOW.

Never happened.  Not once.  Not even possible.  NOT because I'm chatty heavenonlyknows I'm as quiet as a tree, have my moments when I wish I were INVISIBLE dont look at me! dont interrupt my thoughts! ... but I never ever even once once got away with that, did I? 

Because the words that come out of our mouths are what, maybe five percent or less, of the true communication that flows between us among us.  We are keenly aware of one another, and highly adept receivers and senders of communication.  Reminds me of an old medieval saying about going forth and doing good "using words only if necessary."  Kinda makes you wonder about the wildly positive power of thoughts, prayers, intention.  You know, all that stuff that rhymes with grace and joy and love.

YOU!  What a life affirming, life enhancing, consciousness expanding wild joyous romp experience of Oneness this blessed place of Gaia is!  Deep bows.  And cartwheels.

Weep!  Sob, wail, rub ashes in my hair, rend my clothes, beat my chest, drop to my knees drop beneath the surface, howl at the moon.  Weep together for every pain hurt sorrow unkindness unthinkable unspeakable thought or act ever done in the name of fear or insecurity ... to any one, any being, any planet ....

And when I am done, and when the furies of the emotion have passed through left me behind, and I raise my eyes from my introspection and see you there?  And feel you feeling it too??  An inescapable knowing returns, the sweet realization that "I" am not my emotions. 

Whoeverwhatever "I" am seems to reside in peace and quiet and amazing wellbeing and joy, seems to well up from that place down behind the senses.  You know:  that vast place of ineffable Love.  And I raise my eyes and see YOU there, get this joyous electric shock of interconnection, of Oneness --- of oneness with you and me and all that is was ever will be, the very atoms in us that once may have been a star.  Oh my.  Group hug?