When I was young and untested by life’s sometimes cruel twists of fate, I would see overcast and rainy days as rather ‘grey and depressing.’ Isn’t it interesting that, as we are required by life to persist through sometimes unbearable circumstances, we often grow a new appreciation for the ‘constants’ in life?
One of my most pleasurable, yet simple, ‘awakenings’ was realizing that overcast and rainy days are not dull and depressing; they are an essential part of the circle of life, the rhythms of the seasons, and the tempo of Mother Nature.
No matter how the sky seems – the sun is ALWAYS shining – we just can’t always see it. Even at night, it is midday somewhere else in the world.
Life itself is a metaphor for this meteorological reality. We may be tired and irritable, but the divine spark within that warms our hearts, if we only allow it, is never absent. At times, we simply don’t see it.
In 1991, Crowded House released a song that has become a bit of a personal ‘anthem’ – ‘You Always Take the Weather with You.’ I know people think it a bit odd that I believe that we have ‘internal weather,’ ‘internal geography and topography,’ ‘internal history,’ and many other reflections of the world around us – ‘as within, so without’ – a quote from Hermes Trismegistus.
The exciting aspect of viewing the world like this is that I can change my mood and attitude by revising my internal weather. If I am having a cloudy, stormy day, this can be a challenge, but I view it much like a really cold, rainy day – as something that will pass, not as a testament against my entire character.
Similarly, when others are not at their ‘sunshiny’ best, I can see beyond the short-term ‘weather’ to when the sun will break out in full glory again.
