Listening to the rain...

I was listening to the rain in the early morning hours.  I felt enveloped and invited to let memories and thoughts come and go, all held in the cleansing experience of rain falling and nourishing the earth.
Gratefulness filled my soul for the things we can do for each other.  When I lived in an intentional community with people with special needs we learned a perspective that, over the years, has become second nature to all who work with it - a renewed understanding of faithfulness which is described in this quote:

“Create for yourself a new, indomitable perception of faithfulness. What is usually called faithfulness passes so quickly. Let this be your faithfulness:

You will experience moments.... fleeting moments.... with the other person. The human being will appear to you then as if filled, irradiated with the archetype of his spirit.

And then there may be.... indeed will be.... other moments, long periods of time, when human beings are darkened. But you will learn to say to yourself at such times: "The Spirit makes me strong. I remember the archetype. I saw it once. No illusion, no deception shall rob me of it."

Always struggle for the image that you saw. This struggle is faithfulness. Striving thus for faithfulness, we shall be close to one another, as if endowed with the protective powers of angels”.  Rudolf Steiner


Maybe the sound of the rain reminded me of the “protective powers of angels” that surround us quietly and invisibly.  We may or may not notice when others struggle to uphold our higher self when we go through tough times.
But this mindful struggle of upholding the best in another person brings light into the darkness and strengthens us as individuals of integrity.  This practice is a real force in the world and with it we can become precious to ourselves, as this poem says so beautifully.

“The Recognitions” by Irving Feldman

Not the god, though it might have been,
savoring some notion of me
and exciting the cloud where he was hidden
with impetuous thunder strokes of summoning -
it was merely you who recognized me,
speaking my name in such a tone
I knew you had been thinking it
a long, long time, and now revealed yourself
in this way.  Because of this, suddenly
who I was was precious to me

What do you hear when you listen to the rain?


~Claudia