
The first few drops preceding a summer rain storm in the north east are often times heard before seen or felt. Densely packed leafy trees invite the falling water scouts to perk up our ears as they race to earth pinball style. It's often only upon tuning to our awakened senses of the increased humidity, darkened skies, and textured colors of impacting rain do we scoot to cover or toss on a coat sheltering ourselves from the impending natural shower.
A keen observer, however, open to all their senses knows the army is coming from the shifting winds, darkened skies, sticky skin and scent of moisture even before the clouds above consider tossing down their musicians to tap out a tune on the trees below. The simplest moments stitched together empower awareness to see the whisper become the scream, to enjoy the notes played upon the leaves as those early droplets dance to the ground before they actually begin their song.
Simple elements of being in the moment are easy when we are on Walden Pond, but amidst Modern Multitasking Mania how do we retain the ability to connect the whispers that often lead to screams, both good and bad? Instead of hearing, smelling, seeing and maybe even touching indicators of the quickly approaching drench we carry multiple what-if protectors that numb owning the responsibility of moment by moment stitching. A buxom blond, or befuddled comb over city slicker forecasts for rain and without even acknowledging that they are right less than 50% of the time we rush to grab our jackets, umbrellas and plan routes for wet travel.
Some feign surprise when the sun shines all day and we are left shuttling our accoutrement's back to where we could have left them had we done our own evaluation using the tools at our disposal. Yea, it's nice to see Doppler radar on the 42" plasma, but how about reconnecting with the senses that every lesser intelligent beast possesses on our planet when rain is about to come...Dogs know, cats know, cows even change the direction they face when wet weather approaches.
Why have we collectively negated owning those moment by moment evaluations of our chosen environment, our chosen life? Not sure about the societal tendancies for this. Maybe it has to do with the exponential population growth in the past 40 years.

Maybe the disconnect is due to the explosion of information sharing that is mostly incomplete, like the weather persons view of how the day may unfold, or may not. I can only guess.
What I do posess is the ability to own my stitching efforts. Own being in the moment. Own my decisions. Own the impact of those decisions. Own the outcomes whether a whisper or a scream of my stitched together moments. It is through this life long ownership that I will always maintain control, not of the world around me, but rather how I respond to the world and apply myself to any given situation as my own.

A rain drop hits a leaf and I am surprised by the gentle popping sound it makes. Well, if I chose to not pay attention to the darkening sky, and rising stickiness on my skin then the surprise is welcomed, and embraced. If, however, I get irritated that the rain is coming and my preparation is poor, then shame on me for not hearing a whisper to a scream.






