There was no stopping for roadside cuttings this morning.  Rain moved back in after a sunny weekend.  It's a gentle rain, steady, with low rumblings of thunder every once in a while creating the kind of day that encourages sleeping in, or long stares over a hot cup of coffee. This morning watching the rain fall as I waited on my first cup, it seemed even the tall trees off the back deck were still slumbering.  The view of the lake beyond them had disappeared in the cloud cover as it often does, and their dark green silhouettes hung heavy with the wet. The deck had taken on a silky wetness, pooling the faces of the tall beauties above it. All around me the sound of heavy raindrops and quiet fullness. 

Our own lives can feel pretty heavy  with our responsibilities in the outer world and those we carry inside from living with each other. Some days it is too heavy to manage.  Looking out at the drooping greenness all around I was reminded of how under the load of living we forget that heaviness carries more than simply weight. Trudging along day after day we can learn a great deal . We can discover our strengths. That boosts our self-confidence and teaches us to stand up for ourselves. We also pretty quickly learn our weaknesses. When those cause us to give up and lay down, we can experience humbleness, a powerful means of  helping us let go of judging and controlling ourselves and others so hard all the time. Under the weight of our struggles we might even begin to wonder why we have chosen to carry so much anyway.  Maybe  next time we get too fed up, too weary, too caught in the too muchness of everything,  we will take a breather, size up our load, maybe take out some things, or at least repack and after a bit, just keep going, because you know what? all those tall, soaking wet trees, are flourishing.  

"This is what the things can teach us:

to fall,

patiently to trust our heaviness.

Even a bird has to do that

before he can fly."

Rilke  The Book of Hours