So how do we deal with stormy weather in our lives? There’s no simple answer for that, but there are a lot of things that can help—friends, prayer, acceptance, endurance, perseverance, exercise, meditation, mindfulness. And we don’t have to take it so seriously all the time. We can also do a bit of “mindlessness” practice! Do something mindless and entertaining. Sometimes just watching some perfectly silly movie may be the best little thing to help us be our own best friend—even when the sky is falling.
Sometimes what brings the greatest relief is to just stop—and let the rain fall. When we’re going through a stormy time, it’s hard to see beyond our veil of tears, but love is right there in every tear that is shed.
We are a collection of dark and light. This is part of the complexity of the human moment. This will never change. We are a collection of motivations, abilities and personalities—some visible, many invisible. What is sometimes hard to believe is that, within the secret journey of the heart, love is our companion equally within the dark and the light.
The soul is a lot more magnanimous than we are. When we’re in the dumps we tend to project our lack of magnanimity upon, well, pretty much everything. But remember that when you toss in the compost and aerate the soil, the dirt becomes fertile. When you allow the water of love to digest what you fear, you prepare the ground for new life. We are the garden that receives the rain. What we do to mix the dark and the light and all the shades in between to allow new life, forms the substance of the journey between birth and death.
In life, there is always a coming and a going. Often we’re not ready for these changes, nor do we wish for them. It is when there is a parting, a time of change when our heart is aching and our mind does not have answers that we have an opportunity to fall into grace. In the exposure of leave-taking there’s not much to conceal the light of our vulnerability. Yes, that is exactly what I meant to say: “the light of our vulnerability.” If we can pause for a moment and just let the rain fall, witness the weather and the changing landscape as something new and unknown in the process of creation, take a breath of curiosity and wonder, there is an inner light that will provide sufficient illumination to take us through the night. This moment becomes more vivid. There is a sense of awakening. We’re a little less frightened of life. And because we have nothing left to hide or to lose, we can sit in the presence of an aching heart and just be there. We can witness the rainbow.
