“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” ~Jesus (John 12:24-25 in The Message Bible)
Last night it rained, hard. There were local flood advisories–not the 100-year kind of flooding, but lots of roadways with standing water and swollen creeks overflowing from the sudden downpour. We had gone shopping in the late afternoon, windshield wipers set to automatic occasionally flicking away drops of rain. When we came out of the store, however, I was glad for my Monet umbrella (Water Lilies) and that we parked next to the cart corral. On the way home, the wipers couldn’t keep up, and the glare of headlights on the drenched pavement made it hard to see the lane. I was driving and prayed a prayer for safety and then prayed a prayer of thanksgiving when we turned into our neighborhood.
Today, the world was washed clean, thoroughly baptized both by sprinkling and immersion, leaving unanswered questions but also quashing any quibbling. It all counts as far as the thirsty ground is concerned. The living water will bring life back to the golden brown grass of the fields around us. California seasons are gold and green.
The clouds parted and formed into animal shapes (we keep seeing koi fish floating in the sky), and the sun shone down on the leftover dampness. I spent a couple of lovely hours this afternoon at the library among the books, reading, then walked back to my car, breathing deeply the fall air, noticing the smell of the leaves on the ground, a smell that I love. The cognitive dissonance of loving to breathe in the decay made me smirk a little, and though I think it’s not unusual to enjoy that olfactory experience in autumn, I may be a little odd to link the smell of the decay with life-giving breath. It inspired me to write a little poem….
Autumn Breath
Why does the moldering tang of wet leaves
stir my wondering sense?
Decay enlivens me, paradoxically pleasing.
Deeply breathing, lower lobes inflated with
parasympathetic expansiveness;
The breadth of my life broadens,
deepens down in dark hummus–
Waiting.