Breathe In, Breathe Out

This weekend we had some wonderful rain. Big fat drops of rain coming in at a slight angle, not quite pounding rain, but not drizzling either. It was perfect. And as I am wont to do, I went and sat in the rain.

I am not a particularly "spiritual" person. I don't do warm fuzzy religiosity at all. Don't think I'm knocking people who do, I'm just not one of those people. Until it rains.
The rain is the only thing that can calm me down; it's the only sound, the only feeling, that I can describe as serenity. When it rains the way it did this weekend, I go out to meditate and pray in the rain. I put on a sleeveless shirt and a long skirt, and I go sit in the grass and I breathe the way they tell you to for meditation. I can never meditate any other time. I just can't and I don't know why.
I can feel the rain wash away the frustrations, the irritations, the pain and the discord.
I feel my shoulders drop, my hands fall to my knees, open and soft and relaxed.
I feel my thoughts slip away.
I breathe in.
The raindrops fall.
I breathe out.
The rain runs down my face.
I breathe in.
I lift my face, eyes closed to the sky.
I breathe out.
I slips away.
Breathe in.
Hands raise up.
Breathe out.
Rain falls.
Breathe in.
Body relaxes.
Breathe out.
Mind is empty.
Breathe in.
Birth.
Breathe out.
Death.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.

I don't know how I come back to myself. I don't know when I slip away, and I don't know when I return. I don't know how long it's been, but I don't really care either. The clock says ten minutes. My body says a moment, and my spirit says eternity. I go onto the screened in back porch, and Teddy gives me a towel to dry off with. I go back to living my life. But the peace of letting go stays for a while, and I can remember it now, and feel the rain fall on my face, smell the clean world.

In Japanese, there is a word "wa." This word means many things, but when I first learned it, the definition I was given is "harmony." I looked it up in a Japanese-English dictionary and found that it also means "sum" and "ring." A ring is a harmonious thing. It doesn't change no matter how you turn it. It's perfect and smooth and soft. That one's easy. But the sum part of it, that's what I find interesting, especially as a math teacher.
If you think about it, a math equation has no wa. When you find the answer, the sum, you have harmony. A sum is taking all these bits and pieces and fitting them together into one thing. Life often has no harmony. It is complicated, confusing and frustrating. Wa is taking all of those things and figuring out how they fit together into one whole, cohesive unit. My wa has been disturbed of late, and I have not felt that I could write about what's going on, because it's personal. But my wa and I have not been close these last few weeks. My wa, to be perfectly frank, is generally not close to me.

Until it rains.