Book 88 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title – Too Much and Not Enough

Book – Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett

Book Description: Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science—the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains—with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River. It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey’s mopes and Kurt Cobain’s grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume.

Reflection:

I love this adventure and journey that I’m on today. Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever imagined myself reading a book about Rain, and then writing a reflection to add to my quest for this Year of Magical Learning Project to share with others. If you would have told me this 10 years ago, I would have said that you are crazy. There isn’t a scenario in this world that I could have dreamed about at that time that would have led me to this path.

Losing my daughter changed everything in an instant, and now here we are. I don’t know why it happened, and I’ve stopped trying to figure that out. All I know at this point is that I don’t know anything, and we aren’t supposed to know anything. We aren’t in control. We try so hard to predict or future life, to set our goals and objectives, to live our life with consistency and order. The hard truth is that we can’t!

However, you know who does know something…Mother Nature! This lady seemingly has it all figured out. She’s had Billions of years to learn just the right ingredients and tweaks to make to keep this planet in Harmony. It is truly a site to behold and marvel at her ability to keep it all in balance. It is a work of art. She takes the elements she is given (Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire), and finds the perfect way to mix them all together to make sure that everything stays in balance. Rain is a perfect example; it is her way to distribute water to ensurer that no one gets too much or not enough. When she senses the scales are off, she deploys her other tools to bring everything back into alignment.

Meanwhile, us humans are left trying to figure out how she does it even though we never will. Sometimes we think we can do it better, and without fail we fall flat on our face every time. Luckily for us, our main weapon in this world is our ability to endure (and maybe our stupidity???). We get back up and try again. Only God knows why we are supposed to do this, but this appears to be our role. We are apparently supposed to be Mother Nature’s biggest challengers to help her to perfect her secret formula.

My only goal in life these days is to do my best to blend the best of nature and humanity together through my actions each day. To use my values to stay balanced, to learn every day, and to never give up no matter what challenges mother nature wants to place in my path. If I can do this, I’ll have made my daughter, and myself, proud. That, at the end of the day, is all I really care about.

Question: What areas of your life can you stop trying to control and start accepting nature?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Rain

YOML Bookstore - Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett