We had a few small, potent thunderstorms in the area yesterday. We really need the rain and it was a blessing to get it, but storms like these also bring muddy runoff, which is not such a blessing.
It's interesting to live in a place with both a lot of recent building and a lot of national forest and park lands. After the heaviest rains, the rivers coming out of the Smoky Mountain National Park run clear, and watching the mud of 'civilization' flow into them is painful. And enlightening.
Our mindstreams are often muddy from scars and gauges new and old. Every place we go, our mud comes too. Just does. This is the kind of self-reality that is painful enough to ignore!
Mindfulness invites us not to ignore it but to appreciate it, to 'own' it, to notice how murky we sometimes make our interactions. Mindfulness also invites us to cultivate enough still places, deep places, for mud to settle out (at least somewhat). The lovely mix of patience and kindness toward ourselves that mindfulness encourages helps the settling out process work even better.
