H2O

I watched the rain on my snow banks today. The contrast amused me. The snow was becoming smaller. It was becoming invisible as it transformed. I could see it changing.

I realized that rain and snow are both water. It's like the snow was learning from the rain what it truely is. Snow and ice are just water too cold to run or move. The snow that feels the falling rain is warmed by it. Then the snow begins to change and move.

Once it feels the warmth touch it, then the snow can change to water, too. It's free to seep into the ground. Running past it's frozen friends, it seeks the ground below.

Does one little snow flake show the next one, " Like this, see? Then you can run, too!" Or is it the raindrops that teach each flake to melt?

First the ones on the top roll down, and, as they move, the ones beneath them are freed. I see the free water from above teaching the snow it doesn't have to be frozen anymore.

Water for the earth or snow for the earth or rain for the earth; All the same, all are needed for the earth.

We are mostly water, they say. Are we, like snow, just another form, too hard and solid to seep into the ground? What shows us how to change and flow? What warms us so we can see the path to take to move?

Is love the rain for the hardness that is us? By seeing love flow by do we find the way to lose the hardness in ourselves and live? Can we show others how to love and change or do they each need to recieve it from above?

Rain drummed on the roof, drowning out other comforting sounds.The sound of rain on tin echoed in my ears. The tempo picked up, the force increased. It was all I could hear. But underneath, almost silenced, the wind spoke. The power of its voice changed the path of the rain. Easing it to where it's needed even as it falls freely.

Snow must flow from where it lays, rain can move where the wind carries it. Can the wind of love direct where we land or do we love from where we are?

The last of the banks that still decorate my yard are the snow that was compressed by the weight of all the snow of winter. It's more dense and compressed from the weight of the snow that was above it. It takes more warmth and more rain to thaw those hardened banks. Those preserved remains of the first snow to stay are the last to be freed to flow.

Some of those we see as harder to love may be the ones that carried the most weight in their lives. It's presses on them and makes them more dense and resistant to love. It takes more love to warm them and more love to show them how to flow freeling again. It's not that they are bad or stupid, it's that life itself made them doubt love could be theirs.

If we are the love and warmth to each other that frees the ones that are cold and hard we have to remember to spread it thick where those are hurt and hardened from the loads they carry here.

The rain became too loud. I coudn't hear myself think. I felt confused. With thoughts like this who wouldn't be confused?

Rain dripped from the trees, aimed right down my neck, as I left for work. I added my tears, unseen in the rain, to the flow of water toward the earth. I change yet again. There is a thaw coming inside me where a hardness has been wedged.