Rain Drop Reality

Last week it was raining, that slow steady drizzle that we all associate winter days with. The kind of day that has a crisp snap to the air, as that of a scolding parent should you dare head outside without a coat.
The clouds laboured their way across the skies, heavy and ominous, threatening at any moment to spill forth their cargo as in protest.

And the rain ?

The rain fell softly, almost lazily, from the sky above. Raindrops, like casual shoppers at a sunday market, drifted here and there on a whim.

I was stopped at the traffic lights in my car when an errant rain drop, more enthusiastic than the others, snapped me out of my reverie with a "plop" right in front of my face.

I had my mind on work, family and all the stresses of the day to day grind, my mind existing in another plane of creation far from the reality that I was actually experiencing.

So disconnected had I become to the natural world that I watched in awe as the rain drop meandered down my window,like a young child casually explores a small stream on a lazy afternoon.

A bend to this way, a poke and a prod here, as the rain drop sauntered down to the chasis, hidden once more from I who watched it briefly on it's journey.

As though I was physically and metaphorically at a set of traffic lights, time slowed and I was paralyzed with the beauty of existence.


I watched, enthralled, by the dance. That slow, sensual and pervasive dance of the rain as it swayed and gyrated towards it's lover; the earth.

A horn honked, snapping me from my thoughts, and in a daze I forged on through that intersection.

So impacted was I by that moment at the traffic lights that it camped itself in my mind for the rest of the day, like an itinerant traveller who stays just that bit too long.
The raindrop concepts and consequence hummed around my mind, a maelstrom of emotion and influence swirling into my thoughts just as the rain drops had swirled across my windscreen.

I decided to take a walk at lunch and escape the confines of the sterile jail cell that was my office, confident my cell held no promise of an answer.

The rain had eased off by this time and the chorus of the plants was in full voice, rejoicing that their lover had been to satisfy their needs. Everywhere that I looked there was joy, fresh growth and hope.

I slowly sauntered down to a nearby stream and settled down on a fallen log. As I sat in the midday sun, I mulled the morning events over in my mind, as a child turns a new object trying to discern its purpose.


It came to me that I and the raindrop were the same, and yet, different.


All exist in a moment and to each that moment seems as though there can be no other reality, such is the power of the focus.


Each and everyone of us get so caught up in our own existence and, caught, in our supposed problems or issues. We sail through life focusing on but a fraction of what actually exists, in the futile hope that we can create something wonderful or beautiful with our efforts.

We try so hard in our own lives the we forget the reality that exists around us, so separate but so entwined to our own.

We think there can exist nothing more important in life than achieving our own aim. We feel that must be our purpose and with laser like focus, we forgo all else.

The sadness lies in the existence of beauty around us everyday , a beauty we fail to see in our hurried endeavors.

I rose from my stump and recognised that I was that raindrop. I was dancing my dance from whence I came and heading, with my own uniqueness, to a destiny I was creating.

A destiny I was creating with every move, every decision, every rushed or relaxed moment in my life. And, like the raindrop, I was just one of many million other raindrops that was dancing towards destiny.

Except, lately, I had been thinking I was the only raindrop in existence and that had caused me to lose sight of the important things in life.

I realised then, it is true what they say :  it is not the destination that matters, it is the journey.

 I had been hurrying through my life, as though haste would bring greater rewards and it had taken a raindrop to snap me out of the trance.

I vowed that instead of rushing towards a goal, I would saunter as that fateful raindrop across my windscreen.

Too many of us see life as a challenge to be overcome, see life as set of levels that need to be passed and see life as a race or competition with minimum standards which we must obtain.

We dash towards that goal, with blinkers on and life rushes by on the edges of our existence.

Too soon and too sad, we realize too late what really matters.

The raindrop reality matters.

Recharged, refreshed, I realised that I must see life as an opportunity to explore, learn and grow.


For the message of the raindrop is simple.

No two raindrops travel in the exact same path, yet all make it to the ground eventually.

As it is with humans, each has our own journey, each is our own raindrop in the storm of life.

I headed back towards my office determined to forge my own reality.

My very own raindrop reality.

:)

LockyJ