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The clouds are thick over the pond, the rain comes and goes, and comes again.  News reporters let their voices drop apologetically as they announce the inclement weather.  There is no joy to hear, to feel, to see out the window.  We are stuck inside.

There would be no pond without rain.  It would drain away, never to refill.  The cessation of rain would not be just like the removal of the dam that holds the water, oh, no.  The stream would disappear as well.  The pond, the stream, the land, the world would go dry.

There are days when rain falls, and the sponge that is the soil, the roots, the mycelia, the moss, the crevices and fissures everywhere, let it in (they cannot stop it).  Then the rain stops (it always does).  The sponge releases the water from all the interstices (they cannot help but let it go) but slowly, oozing, trickling, and dripping down with gravity, slowly, toward the ocean.  Some will evaporate, but much will flow downstream, and into the pond.

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The flow into and out of the pond is “The tribute of the current to the source” (“West-Running Brook” by Robert Frost).  The source is the watershed, and the watershed grabs and holds the rain (and snow and even droplets of fog) before it lets it go.  The source allows us to marvel at the stream flowing every hour of every day, in sunny, dry weather when we feel comfortable leaving our shelter.  The babbling brook comforts us as the surrounding landscape turns its water loose.  The continuous current – high on some days, low on others – is indeed a tribute to the source.

There would be no plants without the rain.  Their roots can find the slimmest trace of water in the soil, but the soil does not make water.  The land accepts precipitation and snowmelt. Nutrients from the soil dissolve in that water, and plants absorb it through their roots and fungal associates.  Water moves through and out of the plants, making their growth possible.  More water must replace the water being lost.  No water, no growth, no plants.

Do not apologize for the rainy day.  Marvel at the atmosphere, the water cycle, the power of solar radiation, the inevitability of condensation up in the cool, high air, the power of rain.  Rainfall will not harm you with its falling drops.  You can shrug it off, dry out, and keep going.  The rain will hit the ground, fill the spaces, run downhill, and keep going.  The pond will keep going.  Life will keep going, growing in the rain.