Do you remember this story?
"There was a great drought where Wilhelm lived; for months there had not been a drop of rain and the situation became catastrophic. The Catholics made processions, the Protestants made prayers, and the Chinese burned joss sticks and shot off guns to frighten away the demons of the drought, but with no result. Finally the Chinese said: We will fetch the rain maker. And from another province, a dried up old man appeared. The only thing he asked for was a quiet little house somewhere, and there he locked himself in for three days. On the fourth day clouds gathered and there came a great storm and the town was so full of rumors about the wonderful rain maker that Wilhelm went to ask the man how he did it.
He said: “They call you the rain maker, will you tell me how you made it happen?” And the little Chinaman said: “I did not make the rain, I am not responsible.” “But what have you done these three days?”
"Oh, I can explain that." He said. "I come from a country where things are in order. Here they are out of order, they are not as they should be by the ordinance of heaven. Therefore, the whole country is not in Tao, and I am also not in the natural order of things because I am in a discorded country. So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao, and then naturally the rain came.”
There is so much wisdom in this little story, that it reminds me of a secret hidden in a little box. The rainmaker reminds us that we find what we need when we come back into "the Tao" or the natural order of things. When we balance our lives; when we come into peace with ourselves. The mystery is that although only we can do it for ourselves, there is also a whole community involved--we are not separate beings, but find our hope, help and inspiration through each other.
Whether we are coming back into alignment with our personal "Tao" or helping a friend or community do that, let's remember that there is a synchronistic alignment between psyche and soul, and nature and the world. When we extend ourselves to help another, we also help ourselves.
And again, the astrological correlate is in the balancing of the North and South Nodes--we come into our personal balance by self-understanding, and there's nothing more helpful for that than being aware of the "balancing point" between our astrological Nodes. Elizabeth Spring www.elizabethspring.com
