It finally arrived, and none too soon… I love fall rains and listening to sparse acoustic guqin or koto music. I like to smell the earth, as the microbes in the ground release their water-activated scents… are they giving thanks? Not in a scientific sense, no… but spiritually, the music tells me that there is a harmony involved, that in the harmony, there is a love, and where there is love, there is gratitude.

The plants, the soil, the rains, the winds, the clouds, the vines, the rocks, the insects, the worms, the mushrooms, the grasses, the birds, the squirrels, the bushes, the unity of all these things and more, such is life. Such is the stuff of life. And here, I take pleasure in the way it is all brought together in the world of the shower.

Periodically, the leaves bend to let the water fall closer to the earth. The leaves take a rest from eating sunlight to drink their fill from the water as it returns to the earth. And there is harmony, the likes of which it takes a great stillness to see.

I love the rain, because it causes me to pray without realizing it.