I love the sound of summer rain... No - I really, really do.
I love to lie in bed with the windows open and listen to that special sound that has no name.  I love the gentleness and the sweetness that it brings to my garden.  I love the veil it drops around my house that keeps me feeling safe. I love the smell of it, and the touch of it...
However...   I am beginning to wonder if the Great Flood might not be coming after all.  Surely we've had 40 days and 40 nights of non-stop rain by now!  If I was a boat builder, I would seriously be considering my options.
I took this picture a couple of days ago.  A gap had appeared in the cloud and I bolted for freedom. It didn't last long, and within an hour or so, the leaves on the trees were being splattered with giant droplets, and running water and puddles were popping up out of the ground right, left and centre.  England is beyond saturated.
Looking out of my window  I see it's raining again now, and there is no sign of a break in the cloud.  My garden has become the perfect environment for frogs, newts and other amphibians (there is always an upside), my house is leaking (not sure there's an upside to that), and the family wash pile is now so enormous, because we can't get anything dry, that we are in very real danger of being buried beneath it (a hideous thought indeed).
There is a well known saying... 'if you can't beat them, join them!', and I think that applies very well to our weather.  There is nothing to be done about it, we cannot change it, so it seems to me the best thing to do is put on a coat with a decent hood, pull on a pair of wellington boots and just get out into it!  There is something very special about walking through the woods in a downpour.  Usually there is no one else dotty enough to be out in it, and so you have the place to yourself.  It feels wonderful to be amongst the trees when the rain is falling - somehow very special and ancient connections can be made with the beings of the woods at such times.  When the rivers are high it is exhilarating and exciting!  I love watching the water crashing and surging past on it's hungry way to the sea.  And best of all, I like to think Mother Nature's arterial systems are flowing beautifully, and she is feeling good, good, good!  :-)



   

When the sun is shining down from the bluest of blue skies, life can seem easier, safer, happier.  It is as if the Light lifts us, body and soul, to a higher plane where anything seems possible.  There are no barriers between us and infinity, and the imagination can fly free to the stars and beyond.  
For us in England, a bright sun in a clear blue sky is a bit of a novelty, so when it does appear, we really do appreciate it - and then, being the Brits we are, we immediately start wondering how long it will last...
We are in the middle of our Summer, and here in North Devon the bright sun has been coyly hiding behind heavy, rolling blankets of grey cloud. This cloud really does look solid, as if it has been woven and laid over  by some celestial bedmaker.  This kind of cloud seems quite oppressive bearing down on our heads as it does.  The word I sense is 'pressure'... 
Clouds fascinate me, and I love to watch them moving into and out of form.  A warm, summer day with cotton wool clouds drifting by keeps my attention for hours.  I can sail away with them and feel the freedom of nowhere to go and nothing to do...
Yesterday out walking, the clouds were very low and resting on the hills.  They looked so intimate somehow, as if the land and the cloud were communing with each other.  It was as if they were sharing their experiences, transferring information one to the other. I wondered about the water - holding memory as it does - and imagined all the knowledge the water droplets in the clouds would have gained from their endless journeys round and round in the great circles and cycles of life on planet earth. Perhaps the land was giving up its new understandings too - all its experiences as time goes by - giving them up to the clouds who move on and share them elsewhere.  I thought about the consciousness of all things...  How we, as humans, are becoming more and more aware.  How more and more of us are becoming conscious of our consciousness.  How this expanding consciousness must affect all things, and in the end bring great changes to this material experience we call Life.
When the sun shines it warms our hearts and our souls.  This great orb in the sky, the life bringer, without whom all would cease to be... and when it shines all life celebrates, relaxes and revels.  We bask in the warmth, we play and take time out. 
So could there be something in all this about opportunities for learning - working hard, if you like?  When the clouds come down thick and heavy, are they really full of the consciousness gained across all time?  Are they really so full of experiences and understandings, it seems to us like overload?  Is that what the 'pressure' is?  Are clouds carrying the knowledge of the ages - do they hold the akashic records? 
The sun will shine down again from the bluest of blue skies.  We will rest in its light and feel at peace again.  In the meantime, its a little comfort to me to imagine there's more going on than just another grey day...