Dappled light makes for true #forestbathing
It’s raining as I type: drops smashing on my tin roof, loud enough to drown the radio.
Two weeks ago we were sweltering under a drought, with bushfire smoke lingering, giving Melbourne the worst quality air in the world for a couple of days.
But then the rains came.
So yesterday I went for a 3-hour bush hike, prepared to get soaked for the sheer relief of feeling moisture in the air again.
All around me, trees sucked up precious water, as the creek thundered.
Rainforests are fascinating places #nature #australia
The frogs and bugs were so vocal it made conversation difficult, and even the odd leech helped me feel like I was in a tropical rainforest once more.
Our beloved bush has been SO dry, SO brittle, SO stressed; in some places it sadly still is.
But we’ve been blessed by rain… and now we have too much! We’re flooding: cars being swept off causeways, shops inundated, roads closed, homes damaged, and people’s lives wrecked once more.
We have a cyclone in Western Australia, and flash flooding all down the East Coast (where I live), which has finally put out long-burning fires, but at a terrible cost.
Do they look like they’re holding hands to you?
This CANNOT be the new ‘normal’? Or will the calm, clear, science-based predictions of extreme weather patterns really come to pass, in the time-frames they suggested, at the exact severity they proposed?
It sure seems like they’re here to me.
And while that thought can overwhelm, for today I’m going to take comfort in the memory of yesterday’s walk: the smell of moss, fungi and decaying leaves all around me, with wet boots because I slipped while crossing the raging creek.
The spring back under my feet of the rich earth, sodden and fertile once more, after the holding pattern of 6 months of drought, while green diamonds of new buds caught the edge of my gaze.
I could feel the bush breathing a sigh of relief.
And I breathed with it.
Now we need it to stop raining… to ease the swollen rivers, and calm the seas and sky.
But thank you Mama Nature, for the blessing of the rain, putting out the fires.
In gratitude for different perspectives, G xO
bone&silver 
Thank goodness those fires are out! 🙂
Don’t talk to me about flooding. Last spring we had So Much Water here in our part of Canada…ugh.
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So grateful the fires are out!
But yes, lots of water… these are challenging times everywhere hey? 😐
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I’m also grateful to know the fires are out. I watched a show on Netflix “the biggest little farm” and I would recommend it. First of all it is the kind of show that allows you to sleep well after, no car chases and so on. Secondly it is about a farm in California and I don’t want to give it all away. But California has had it’s share of flooding, fire, and drought also.
Glad to hear about your walk and how you enjoyed all the air freshness, nothing like that eh? Sending good thoughts.
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Thank you so much for your kind suggestion and understanding; I’ve seen trailers for that film and thought it looked good too 🙂
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I’m so happy that you are getting the rain that you need! I wish it didn’t have to come with the extreme of flooding right after the fires, but the rain is good
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The rain is SO GOOD, little green shoots everywhere 😊🙏🏼
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Yay!!!
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I can feel the relief from your description of the rain. May Mother Nature breathe again and catch her breath.
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Yes indeed. Thank you for reading & commenting 🙂
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We didn’t get as much rain, but it was welcome nonetheless. I very much fear though that this summer was a foretaste of what’s to come, the proverbial ‘writing on the wall’. And as we lurched from bushfires to floods, I realised something even scarier. It’s the countries with the most extreme conditions to start with that will be hit the first. Countries like Australia. We have always had an arid landscape and harsh climate so we have less margin for error. Like Tuvalu and some of the other Pacific nations, we’re canaries in the coal mine, and we have less time than the rest of the world. 😦
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Oh gawd… 😞😩
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Yeah. I feel like Cassandra the prophet of doooooom.
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I’m glad the fires are out, but so sorry that it took flooding rains to do that! The extremes are scary, and I truly hope this isn’t the new normal!
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Still
Raining
☔️
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So sorry….. What was needed was a nice, soft and steady rain. I can’t imagine trying to cope with floods in the aftermath of the awful fires!
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Yeah, this is the new normal, and it’s constantly changing! 🙂
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It’s doing my head in
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One day at a time. m’dear, one day at a time.
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