Monday 28 July 2014

Rain.

I've been having a bit of a hard time lately. Even though I love my new job, I've been having trouble with adjusting to working full-time and at the side to keep doing all the things that I want to do and getting enough rest. As I've stated in an earlier post, my beloved old bike was run over by a truck last week. I bought a new one, which, after a stressful weekend, turned out to be stolen on Sunday night. I spent way more on that bike than I would normally do and I was insanely happy with it. The receipt for the bike was still in my bag when I discovered it was gone forever.

So, as you can imagine, I was very sad, stressed and mad when I woke up this morning and discovered that insane amounts of water were coming from the sky (and with insane I really mean insane; I picked the photo below from Nu.nl, a Dutch news website), and I would have to walk to my work, which takes me almost an hour. I'd had all this crap, and then this! Urgh. I wanted to crawl back into bed and never leave my house again.

(Amsterdam this morning, source: Nu.nl/ANP)

And this, exactly this feeling, is a sign that I have to take action. Because it's a setback in my depression.
I recognized it and I remembered my therapist, who is usually really good in turning around my mood, and I wanted to try some of her tricks for myself. So I put up an advert on facebook for a new (preferably free) bike, and I tried to think something positive about the rain.

Amsterdam, source: Nu.nl/Ruben Steeman

So I thought of how the rain was not only good, but necessary - feeding all the plants that dried out from the 2 week heatwave we just had so they could live. Water is essential for all life. 70% of the earth surface is covered in it and 70% of our own bodies is just water. Water flows through everything and connects us with the nature, the plants, the trees and the earth we live on.
According to most Pagan beliefs (which is NOT a satanistic religion, for more info about Paganism, view my previous post about this subject), water is one of the five 'elements' - elemental substances that cannot live without each other and need to be balanced in order to get a true harmony. So naturally, all of the heat and fire of the past few weeks desperately needed to be balanced with the other elements, hence the excessive amounts of water. I know about the scientific elements and I believe that the five Pagan elements are not merely substances but can better be seen as some kind of energy forces. And why shouldn't you enjoy these completely natural processes?

With that thought, and an optimistic heart, I went on my walk to my work. It was still raining very very badly but I left my umbrella and thick coat at home deliberately, took a dry shirt and a towel with me in my (water resistant) bag, and just went to walk in a thunderstorm for an hour. I closed my eyes most of the time. I listened to the sound of the rolling thunder and the sound of the rain hammering on the streets, the trees and the cars, and smelled the wonderful scent of wet grass and stone, which felt very relaxing. I didn't mind the rain in my face, or the fact that I was getting wetter than I had ever been in my life. It felt as if the rain washed away all the stress and misery that had heaped up in the past few weeks. It was just a very peaceful and refreshing walk and when I arrived at my work I felt so alive! I dried myself with my towel, put on another shirt and some makeup and was ready for another day at work.

I still feel glowy and refreshed from that walk in the morning.

And, I've just picked up a bike and it was free. I need to fix the back tire but otherwise it's ok!

Today was a good day.


1 comment:

  1. This makes me happy just reading this. What a beautiful turn of events, and well done for creating optimism in such a trying situation :)

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