In 2010, PBS aired a show called "Next Year Country. In it, Matt Ryan, a rainmaker from Mount Shasta was called to North Eastern Montana to come to the aid of three families who were experiencing a profound drought. The situation had become so dire that they were about to loose their farms. The rainmaker brought large metal pipes and laid them out on the ground moving them from time to time for two weeks. Then he left. The drought persisted throughout the rest of the state, but the North East Corner, where the three families lived had heavy rains and an abundant harvest.
In 1983, Shirley MacLaine, the American Film Actress wrote an autobiographical account of her explorations into the infinite possibilities of life in her book, Out On A Limb. There in the mountains of Peru, she tells of her experience in calling the weather to change. Vicki Noble in Shakti Woman speaks of the same phenomena. This inspired me to play with that energy as well. And you know what? It worked. Standing in openhearted harmony with the beauty and sacred interconnection of all things, while engaging my imagination and holding to my intention, I have engaged my sense of command and parted the clouds or called the rain.
Last year in my women's circle, we all went out back with some simple dowsing rods and walked around an old abandoned two story brick building. The dowsing rods swung together and touched every time one of us walked across an irrigation line or water pipe. It took us a while to realize that that was why our rods were crossing, but then we saw the spigot and the meter. The rods also swung right where the vetch was growing lushly in the sparse field. Vetch has deep roots that reach down and pull water up to the top layers of the soil.
My grandfather was a 'Water Witcher.' Most of the folks in his part of the Midwest didn't want to have anything to do with psychic ability and abruptly dismissed it out of hand. But somehow, dowsing slipped through the cracks of acceptability. Using an old forked willow branch, he would hold it in his hands, letting the end that would have been closest to the root zone point out in front of him. Then he would walk the land. He would start off for the places where water would likely be, and then he'd move along until the branch dipped sharply down toward the ground and told him the life giving liquid was near. All the farmers in his section of the country called him to help find a good spot whenever a well was needed.
As we round the bend into the last months of our rainy season, here in California, where the reservoirs are still low from the last few years of drought, I am wondering how many of us, when we see those big cumulus clouds overhead would prefer not to have it rain today. Perhaps we just washed the car or have plans for a garden party. Maybe the new roof is not yet on that house we are building for that young couple with the baby. Or, perhaps we are thinking how there is still no rain. 'No rain.' "Not enough to do the trick." How influential are our thoughts and words? How deep do these infinite possibilities run? My experiences have shown me that the subtle energies of nature are willing to join their wisdoms with ours. But we do need to step into concert with them, open up and ask. When we do, they respond. So I invite you to join me in reclaiming our connection with water. Let's use our imagination to feel and smell,taste, hear, thrill at and call the rain?
© Josephine Laing, 2015
