Rain

Rain.
It’s been raining here a lot yesterday and today. Not a harsh rain; a nice gentle soaking rain. We needed it so badly. The land seems to be singing today, as flowers open under the gentle caress of water droplets and butterflies frolic in the pauses between showers.

Rain is one of the differences between a natural society and an industrial society. A natural society welcomes rain, rejoices in it, because the people know that without the rain they –and the land –can not live. We depend on the rain for so much. Even when there is too much and a flood occurs, a natural society recognizes this as a natural process and one that must happen. Most natural societies simply don’t build in flood plains, or if they do, recognize that they will be flooded occasionally.

Industrial societies, on the other hand, view rain as a nuisance, something we can’t yet control, that hampers our preferred activities such as washing the car (hello, its rain) or fishing. All of nature is treated like that: as something outside of ourselves that should be tamed and controlled. We do not recognize that we are a part of the natural world and seek to dominate it, to bend it to our will. But one can not escape the natural world; even in space there are natural forces to be dealt with. And nature always has the last word. Somewhere Mark Twain is laughing at our arrogance in the Midwest right now, to think we can tame what can not be tamed. He got what so many in industrial societies never do understand: that we are part of the great circle, not outside of it.