“You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”
As a child, I was always in awe of the rain.
Every time it rained I would curl up in a tiny ball and simply stare outside the window as those million tiny droplets of water chased each other down to feed the plants and the earth. I would close my eyes and listen to the rain in hopes that maybe I could hear a melody or a lullaby?
The rain always had a story.
After every rainfall, I would run outside, eager to smell the beautiful fragrance of the earth.
I always wondered about that; why I was able to smell the earth only after a heavy downpour and not when the earth was dry.
I think that’s why to me the rain was magic. Everything always felt like a new beginning when the rain stopped. Like life was giving us a second chance at everything.
A few weeks ago it started to rain while I was on my way back home from school and all I could feel was irritation. I was so tired, it was one of those days where I was eager to get home and just rest.
Then the rain sabotaged my plans.
I stood under a small shed, waiting for it to cease and all the while wearing a scowl that would frighten even the most self assured person away. I just wanted to get home.
As I stood there, impatiently tapping my foot; you’d never guess that at one point in my life; the rain was a love of mine, something that always amazed me.
Somehow along the path to growing up, I lost that sense of amazement.
Just like me, a lot of you have experienced a disconnection from nature and a loss of your sense of wonder and awe.
Let me ask this; how many of you still take time to look up at the starry expanse of the night sky, gaze out across the blue vastness of water or the green expanse of fields? How many of you allow yourselves to enjoy the beauty of a sunset or the comfort in a hug? How many of you overlook the joy in a child’s giggle or the pleasure of a good laugh?
The truth is that we lose our sense of wonder as we become adults.
We always want to be in control of what happens, when it happens and how it happens. Our need to control and have every facet of our lives go according to our plans blinds us to the magic of life.
The rain that day was a surprise; an unwelcome surprise for someone who was tired and simply wanted to go home. I was so caught up in my frustrations that I failed to see the magic of life unfold.
And yet as a child, I understood the magic of life; I felt it everywhere and saw it in everything. I was able to walk through life with such amazement because wonder is an innate quality that we are born with.
But what happens as we grow older? Where does the wonder go? Where does this need to control rather than to feel come from?
I think it starts as we grow older and start to ‘understand’ the world around us.
As children language is a great discovery. It’s an amazing to be able to name something. As we grow up, we use language to communicate things and it becomes a powerful tool as we journey through life. Using language; we are taught to think in terms of absolutes. Something is one way or the other, right or wrong, black or white. As we age, we carry this with us; for everything we find in life, we feel a need to label. We feel in control when we know a thing by its label.
“What is it? Is it a bag? Is it a shoe? What color is it? Is it red? Is it blue? What IS IT?”
A favorite quote of mine is by the spiritual teacher Krishnamurti and it says,
“When you teach a child that a bird is named ‘bird,’ the child will never see the bird again.”
Because as a child grows, what they will see every time they look up in the sky and see a strange, winged being take flight is the word “bird.” They will forget that what they are seeing is actually a great mystery.
You see when we know what something is called; we think we know what it truly is and understand its mystery. And yet the truth is we usually do not!
A “flower,” “river,” “sunset,” “sunrise,” “moon,” “star,” “rain,” “sun,”–all of these are things that we have given names and all of these are things that we become blind to as we grow older. We cease to see the majesty, the magnificence, the mysterious wonder of things after we name them.
Something happens as we grow, where as we ascribe language to something, we somehow put form around it and limit our perspective of that thing. We start to see the bird according to how we define the bird, rather than as the beautiful and special movement of energy that it is.
I perhaps don’t understand the full depth of this quote, but what I imagine Krishnamurti was referring to is this idea that when we are born we see the sacredness in life and the things around us. That is why if you want to witness a natural display of a sense of wonder, you just need to observe a child. A child has no judgements of why things are so; their whole world is viewed through the eyes of wonder and excitement.
That’s why children are such a wonder. That’s what innocence really is.
Children who most times do not know these names or labels, are lucky enough to walk through the world with a sense of wonder. Children know they do not know.
It is because we think we know that we get so easily bored and lose all sense of wonder. We need to be reminded that we do not know.
Just because we can call something a flower does not mean that we understand what it really is.
Coming to terms with that has helped me be able to reclaim my sense of wonder in the life and things around me.
Remembering that while you may know the names of things around you- the sun, the stars, the flowers- you do not understand their magnificence or mystery can help you look at almost everything with a sense of awe and appreciation.
In fact try it with yourself- you know your name, but that maybe all you know about yourself. As you discover the world around you with your newly-found glasses of wonder; also take a look at inner you, at yourself. Go deeper than the name you were given. Try to understand the mystery that is you. Trust me, you will appreciate yourself so much more.
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Life is asking you to acknowledge the wonder that is you, to have a sense of wonder about life, to stop and appreciate the world around you, to offer a smile, a kind word or deed to your fellow man — not to gain anything, but rather just to give of your wondrous self.
Go on, give yourself permission today to reclaim your sense of wonder, to take in a few deep breaths and stand in wonder at the magnificence of life, at the people you meet along the way that impact your life, at the wonder of mother nature, and at the miracle of being alive
I found magic in the rain. Maybe you can too.
Keep hanging onto hope_S.
