Sitting curled up in my office chair, cozy, thunder rumbling, rain tapping the skylight: constant, steady yet gentle, soft on the eyes and the ears, cleansing. I am slowly drying from head to toe, jaw slightly clenched, breath steady.
I went to seek solace from the rain and the trees between sessions today. The cruelty and pain that humans experience was getting stuck in my body and I needed help, and so, when my second client of the day texted to tell me that she was helping a neighbor in need and couldn’t come in- a welcomed reminder of human kindness- I drove to the nature preserve up the road.
I walk out of the car, through the grassy park with giant trees, my mind muted, my body weighted down by the energy of cruelty and the clenching of protectiveness. I tune into feet contacting grass, direct my attention to the energy of these timeless trees. Slowly the energy in my body starts to come up in gags, spitting up the harshness that it had absorbed.
As my throat clears the stuckness, I feel the familiar crack in the left shoulder blade, heart beginning to open: filling up with breath and rainwater. Ground and breath and trees and rain fill my senses. Tears and my body’s sounds blend with the now fierce rain: grief for how beautiful and tender, and harsh and cruel everything is; swirled into one messy whole.
As the rain soaks me through, my crown chakra opens and an energetic rain flows down like a steep waterfall. As it seeps into my body, energetic water comes up to meet it from the earth up the body. I feel calm. Not some magical release or complete relief. The calm that comes with surrender. The calm that comes with feeling held and a part of it all.
My wonderful teacher and former therapist, Greg Johanson, once shared a practice with me and now I share it with you. Sit mindfully sensing the body, and imagine a healing green rain falling down all around you. One by one, share with the rain anything that is weighing down your body and heart. After each shared truth, in your mind’s eye respond with ‘And the healing green rain says ‘I know’’. I had forgotten this practice, but here, in this little preserve, the healing rain can indeed embrace it all.