Learning from Nature
Rain and Resilience
Hello, Friends. This week’s post is a reminder to get outside and find joy and inspiration in the company and lives of our more-than-human neighbors. Because in times that leave us feeling fearful about the future, there is comfort in seeing life going about its daily business, in witnessing the everyday miracles happening around us in the world of nature.
So I offer you a mega-dose of beauty and connection from the high desert of Northern New Mexico where I live, where the summer monsoon rains arrived early and abundantly after a very long, very hot and dry spring.
Months of no rain and blow-torch winds burned the native grasses even as they began to green up, and withered those few wildflowers that managed to bloom. I struggled to stay positive as the high-desert I love turned brown and crisp, and the news from the nation and around the world became grimmer and grimmer.
And then the rains arrived, first a gentle all-day soaker that delivered half an inch, and then, while I was away on a work road-trip, a crashing thunderstorm that dumped an inch in an hour. After I got home a week later came a night-long rain that began as a pounding “male rain” with sizzling lightning and thunder that shook the house, and trailed into hours of soft “female rain,” totaling almost another inch.
The landscape that had seemed dead revived almost instantly: moss on the surface of the soil turned green overnight, lichens brightened from dust-gray to blues and oranges and neon yellows. The seemingly dead grasses pushed out new leaves, tinting the landscape with a wash of pale green.
And the wildflowers! Dots and splashes of yellow, white, pink, scarlet, orange and magenta appeared, and native bees in all sizes and colors appeared too, wakened by the blossoms that feed them. The dawn chorus of birdsong returned as the land revived.
Life is resilient, even when all seems lost.
When the news of disasters and wars and famine and racism and hatred bring me low, I take a walk outside. And invariably find something that lifts my spirits and offers solace.
Like the dozen tiny cactus with their outsized magenta blossoms in the video below that opened one sunny day in the grassland between my house and the road, cacti so small I hadn’t noticed them until the rains called their beauty forth. (Pardon the wind from the approaching thunderstorm!)
Or these clumps of starry pink blossoms on the red bluets growing beside the trail I walk every morning.
So here’s my challenge to you: When you feel overwhelmed or depressed by the state of the world or events in your own life, get outside. Take a walk and look for the more-than-human lives around you. Stop to appreciate them: notice their shapes and forms, how they behave, who they hang out with.
Look for beauty. Open yourself to the joy of life. Say hello to your more-than-human neighbors (you don’t have to know their names to appreciate them).
And if you can’t get outside, check out some of the hundreds of writers celebrating and honoring the living world here on Substack. There are some recommendations on my home page, and many more are listed in Home, the directory of Substackers all over the world who write nature compiled by
. (Thank you, Rebecca!)
One more thing: For an introduction to the wonders you might see, watch “The Fantastical World of Nature Nearby,” my recent talk for BeeChicas and Boulder Public Library. Enjoy!
What brings you joy in these strange and difficult times? Comment and let us know. We can all use a boost.
Blessings, Susan
Our small garden has become a desert jungle after the rushing monsoon rains. The songbirds are visiting our feeder. The insects are buzzing. The hummingbirds are lining up on the branches of the bird of paradise, sucking the pollen from the flowers and then flying over to the hummingbird feeder. Thank you, monsoon rains. You've turned our desert garden into a wildlife paradise! And thank you, Susan, for helping us to appreciate the green while it is there.
Thank you for linking the directory, Susan. I loved this piece.