For a region where it is so much a part of the meteorological DNA, the volume of people that complain about it doesn’t seem to cease. No matter your cultural, or ethnic background, torrential moaning about the rain, like it is an integral pillar of your personality, is a distinctly unifying British trait. Indeed, bewailing the weather, no matter the day or season, is distinctly British: it is too hot, not hot enough, wet, grey, cold, miserable. Is the weather, in fact, a mirror to the populace, of its collective psyche, rather than a commentary of itself? It’s hard to think, or feel otherwise.
Of those that complain, and seem to relish doing so, I am no such person. I know that the rain is a gift. The rain is quenching, the rain is nurturing, the rain is life-giving and life-sustaining.
Today, I woke up to cloud cover of earl grey meringue. I pushed open my bedroom skylight as high as my arms could stretch, and celebrated the softly saturated earth, succulently verdant trees, and tousling breeze scented with the fresh pungency of wet mushrooms. The drops of rain adorning my skin as glimmering mothi– it was regal and I felt it.
The humidity remains, and it is still beautiful. As a water sign, I feel an intuitive connection with rain, a knowing solidarity with its intention. It hurts me when it is belittled- if only so many more appreciated what a sacred invocation it is, of cleansing, of nourishing, of healing, of renewal.
Ciona Bhachu-Nankervis 