Sunday 10th September 2001 20-50 CET
The South African group Ladysmith Black Mombazo, one of the groups
on the Paul Simon 'Gracelands' CD...and I understand Nelson Mandela's
favourite group..... have a beautifully melodic song "Rain rain beautiful
rain". The song, amongst other things, emphasises the value of rain
in a hot, dry land.
They would have loved it here today. The 'Swedish Autumn Monsoon' hit
with full force, coming so heavy the rainwater gutters for the roof could not
cope and mini-waterfalls cascaded down the side of the building - this was
doubtless helped by the abundance of leaves that had gathered in them . So
I got drenched clearing out leaves - but even then the gutters still overflowed!
It was.....hmmm...magnificent :)
We often think it inconvenient, but I wonder where all the forests would bem
where all the berries (blueberry amongst them) would be, where would the lakes
be...if we didn't have this continuing supply of water?

Of course, we (mankind that is) would probably like to reach a point of being
able to control all these things (we seem to think we are clever enough for that)
and that we could turn on rain like a garden sprinkler. I wonder if we are sufficiently
sensitive to the needs of nature to ever be able to do this with any degree of
success.

Maybe it would simply be better if we adapted to the wisdom of nature, helping
for example to channel water to arid areas of the world (creating new micro-climates)
and improving the conditions for so very many human beings. Alas, as yet, we
have not reached a point of accepting even the importance of this - though we have
the technology for it, we lack the will to do it..

Nature, however, continues to provide some form of balance...even if we don't
quite understand the rational.
"Rain rain beautiful rain' simply demonstrates the principle - that it depends where we
stand as to how we view.