Rain, Early and Late

Before I was a sentient being I was the sentient rain. I won’t kid you: the intelligence of water falling is the pearl of consciousness and there’s no proper wording for this. You can go ahead and talk to yourself: whisper "Hermes Trismegistus" under your breath, throw Latin around—"spiritus mundi" or "illud tempus" (your lips moving as you push the grocery cart past a display of household cleansers). You can be assured that the man behind you with the cart filled with charcoal and lighter fluid is not aware of your misfit mysticism in aisle five at Sam’s Club.

I was the sentient rain and then the sentient stone and today I will carry home the ashes of our beloved black Labrador Roscoe and I will place them beside the ashes of my guide dog Corky and the ashes of my wife Connie’s beloved dog Tasha and I will share, privately, lips moving, some shy, unadulterated heart to heart doggy gibberish with my friends who are falling forever through the pearl of consciousness impelled by the forces of love.

The spindrift syllables of rain are in the ashes and flesh. Try to get out of that. The unconscious and the carbon molecule are all the same. Try to get out of that? It can't be done.

S.K.

Comments

[Author]

I am so very sorry. Our beloved pets are such an important part of our lives and I can begin to understand just how you feel having lots pets of my own in the past.

[Ken]

I feel very close to you both in this moving poem and in this enormous loss.

[Janet Riehl]

Dear Stephen,

I recall meeting Thich Nhat Hanh during a spiritual retreat in France for a few days. He'd brought a covey of monks and nuns with him. They were mainly there to teach the children at Sogyal Rinpoche's spiritual seat in Europe: Lerab Ling.

But, we all loved him...and them.

He taught on "Inderdependent Origination"...this doctrine you allude to movingly in this poem, "Before I was a sentient being I was the sentient rain. I won’t kid you: the intelligence of water falling is the pearl of consciousness and there’s no proper wording for this."

I had never understood this teaching. I just couldn't get it. But, then Ti told us the story about the piece of paper...how when a match is set to it becomes smoke and water vapor...and he led this all the way to the ocean and beyond. I bought the tape of this teaching and listened to it all summer, long after he left.

Yes. The intelligence of the sentient rain...and how the beloved pet continues...on and on and on.
May it be so.

Janet Riehl
www.riehlife.com