Embracing the Rain

Late at night
I drift away
I can hear you calling,
and my name
is in the rain,
leaves on trees whispering,
deep blue sea's mysteries. - Enya It's in the Rain

Who can resist the call of the wind and rain?

As I have written before, I feel a wildness within me in moments of elemental potency. In a previous blogpost "Singing into the Wind", I spoke of the intensity and grandeur of the wind, and my urge to add my melody to its eternal song.  Last night the wind called me again - but this time its beguiling song was more tempestuous, with a martial rhythm provided by the primal drumming of the rain. How could I not go out and commune with it once more?

This time the hour was late - or rather early - 2am and I had not slept for eighteen hours. The rest of the house was utterly dark - my entire family slumbering peacefully. To them the sound of the rain was soothing; a lullaby. Not so for me. Despite the hour - the weather invigorated me and set my heart pounding. 

A rain-drenched, roofed balcony, similar to my own except mine stands alone save for a tree beside it... 

My bedroom has two doors - the first a portal to the rest of my safe and carpeted home. The second (less used but more romantic) opens onto a roofed balcony overlooking the harbour. Barefoot and wearing a sleeveless summer dress, I closed the one and stepped out of the other - onto the wooden floor of the balcony, now glassed by the rain to become a mirror of the sky.

Instantly I was caught in the soft, coiling embrace of the wind. I was surprised to discover it felt almost warm, despite the storm. The lancing drops of rain blown into the balcony however felt chill against my arms and back. Within seconds I felt my dress grow heavy with moisture, and briefly worried about it becoming soaked if I did not go back indoors immediately. Then I laughed. Throwing my arms wide to the wind and rain, I walked forward to the edge of the balcony and rejoiced in letting myself get drenched and buffeted by the storm.

I fling my arms out to the rain...

In the midst of my joy, a small part of myself questioned what I had done. Am I going to regret  this? I could catch a cold. I could get my bed wet if my hair stays like this and then it might get moldy. If I get wet I might not be able to sleep at all tonight and then won't function tomorrow... What am I doing really? What's the reward? A part of me feared: Have I been a fool?

My elated, couragous self laughed again and replied: This is my life and this is who I am: a mortal being who responds to the call of the storm and acts upon it - a woman unafraid to join the wind in song - a woman who embraces the rain. The timid voice was silenced. I smiled fiercely.

Storm Witch by merriya on Deviantart

Suddenly I felt like a weather witch. Leaning out on the balcony railing I smelled the magical, elusive scent of petrichor. Within moments I was gauntleted by the rain. In my hands I held a notebook - for I knew this would be a time of many thoughts and strange feelings - spells that could be quickly caught and written down. My pencil was my witch-wand, and I wielded it sightlessly (for there was not enough light to read my words) on paper that became quickly bubbled with the rain.

A hazy harbour in the mist and rain.

Water roared from the gutters and all the windows were rattled by the wind. Beyond the balcony the air was mist-laden and further curtained with rain. Everytthing was partially obscured by the haze of moisture - which strangely dimmed all lights while making the darkness less dense and more nebulous.

At times like these, the borders of reality become blurred...

I felt like I stood at the merging of reality and possibility - the "otherlands" I dream of seemed at once almost close enough to touch. My head was light and my thoughts swirled as though taken by the wind, out onto the bay. Out there - water and air became indistinguishable and the far-lights of the towns across the harbour seemed to float like hazy stars in a grey sky, or a faery shore unreachable by mortal boat... 

The shores of Valinor, Ultima Thule or the island at the world's end? 

I don't know how long I stood there on the balcony. Inevitably I knew I must return to my room and sleep like the rest of the city, enveloped by the rain. But I wished I could do more - to wander free all night and alone in the wet streets, until every part on me was drenched in glorious rain...

When I did go back inside I sat for a while beside my window. On dry nights I sometimes keep it open, and the wind enters my room and haunts my dreams. But tonight the humidity would ruin the paint and breed mold on my shoes and clothes. So the window was shut and so I sat behind the barred leadlight glass, and the wind battered vainly against the panes. I felt a bit bereft.

But I looked down at myself and saw the sheen of water on my skin, and laid my notebook with my slippery pencil on my darkened desk. Although I had left the storm outside - I carried some of it with me, on my skin and in my book in the form of words imperishable. And part of my spirit - my wild and gleeful spirit - remains outside, cavorting in the wind and rain. 

Slowly I changed out of my wet dress into pyjamas - but I did not dry my skin completely. In the depths of the night I lay in bed and yet - my spirit wandered with the wind on waves lanced by the rain -  towards the lights glimmering faintly on the unseen shore.

Communing with the rain and wind...

The Glory and the Dream: Lucy Pevensie and I

I am a magnet for all kinds of deep wonderment

I am a Wunderkind

I am a pioneer naive enough to believe this

I am a princess on the way to my throne

Rewatching two of my favourite movies, the first two in the relatively recent Narnia adaptations, I realised that contrary to what I had thought as a child, the character with whom I most  identify from of the Narnia chronicles is not Susan, but Lucy Pevensie. In fact - the more I understand myself, I come to believe that out of all my fantasy heroes - she embodies most the kind of person I am, my outlook on the world; my insecurities and my delights.

Lucy is the one who discovers Narnia first - the girl who enters the snow-clad forest, not with fear (as most people would enter an strange, cold place at the back of their wardrobe), nor with the assumption that she is hallucinating or dreaming. Instead she laughs with wonder; not astonished but delighted. Clearly, she had always believed such things were possible - perhaps had imagined them, and longed for them, unuttered. The snowy, bitterly cold Lantern Waste is to her a marvelous place - a miracle - her kingdom. From her first visit, she is the most at home of all the Pevensie children in Narnia, the one who feels the most joy in its air and beauty in its every aspect. She is the one who makes friends with the faun and the beavers - and who feels closest to Aslan. 

I think I am very like Lucy. But when I first read The Chronicles of Narnia that very similitude was what made me ignore her. After all - she was just a little girl, the same age as I was when I picked up the books for the first time. And I knew I was no hero. Susan however - the responsible and superior elder sister - had all the qualities I felt I lacked but passionately desired. She was older - taken more seriously than a little girl. She had beauty (something both Lucy and I felt we lacked, though I've later come to learn that we were both wrong), and she had deadly (and admirable) skill with a bow. But with all her qualities, she is the one who feels the least connection to Narnia, who is the most content to live in the "real world"... Now I understand this, I question - is this what I really want?

There's a telling exchange between Lucy and Susan in Prince Caspian, where Susan wonders why she didn't see Aslan when her younger sister did. Lucy answers: "Perhaps you didn't really want to." Susan says wistfully to her, "You knew we were always coming back, didn't you?" Lucy replies, as if it was obvious - "I hoped so".  It is clear here that Susan had given up hope on ever returning to Narnia, and almost didn't want to come back because it would disrupt her carefully constructed contentment in her "real world" life. Even her pleasure at returning is tempered by the bleak thought - "while it lasts..." Lucy however is shocked that anyone could come to Narnia and not feel boundless joy. She had never given up hope or forgotten her time as "Queen Lucy the Valiant".

 As I grow older, I  see many Susans. I see that I could become like her, and that such would not be a bad thing to be... After all, she is queenly, strong, beautiful and kind. But she lost her magic. Lucy however, never stopped believing, and neither will I.

Two scenes in particular epitomise those elements of Lucy's character that are most like mine. The first is from The Lion,  the Witch and the Wardrobe. After having her belief in Narnia mocked by her brother Edmund and disbelieved by Susan and Peter - after having felt the wood at the back of the wardrobe depressingly solid beneath her fingers - after the humiliation of being unable to "prove" Narnia's existence to her siblings - Lucy returns to the wardrobe in the dead of night. 

Listen to the following music from the scene to perfectly understand her trepidation as she pads through the darkened house, slipper-clad, wondering if she had indeed dreamed her adventure, but hoping desperately that it had been real... and her transcendent joy when she opens the door of the wardrobe and the chill Narnian wind blows out her candle.   

This scene perfectly expresses Lucy's questing spirit, and her belief in something beyond the mundane.

The second scene is from Prince Caspian. Previously she had been disappointed to discover that the trees were still and silent on her return, but before, when she had been queen they "used to dance". But never one to be content with the explanation "that's the way things are", upon waking beside a campfire on her first morning back at Narnia, Lucy walks into the forest alone, to find the woods suffused with light and magic - just as she had always believed. The trees sway and dance before her, and dryads float on scented breezes. And between the trees - a flash of gold - the ultimate validation. Aslan waits for her in the forest of wonder. 

Lucy: I've missed you so much! Why haven't you shown yourself, like last time?
Aslan:  Things never happen the same way twice, dear one.

In the midst of her joyful reunion with Aslan, a twig snaps - and Lucy awakes in truth - to a grey dawn and a forest of still and silent trees. Though she immediately retraces her dream-steps, and the real forest is still beautiful - Aslan cannot be found and the dryads are gone - perhaps had never been.

Touching a silver birch-bole, Lucy whispers "Wake up..." But the trees do not respond.

I feel such aching sympathy for her at this point. Lucy is eventually proven right when she finally meets Aslan again and he wakes the trees for her, but in that moment I know just how she feels. I too have felt that the trees were my friends - that could I but call them at the right time - they would wake for me. I have called to them - have whispered to the wilderness, desperately hoping for reply... But there was never a response. Or - not in words at least. I did notice that whenever I felt most "magic" in nature - whenever I tried to move within the world I half-sensed to be - those were the times I saw and understood the deep beauty within the sun, the wind and all growing things, and knew myself to be a part of that beauty. But I believe the sensing and the wishing and believing are part of that understanding. 

I used to think Lucy was the least of the Pevensies - but now I have learned wisdom. She is not gifted with the weapons of war, like her siblings, but with the gift of healing and compassion. She does not win glory on the battlefield, but knows the deeper truth that "battles are ugly affairs". She feels afraid, but nevertheless accompanies Aslan on his journey to Death, rides him like a tempest and faces down the Telmarine army by his side. I love her like a sister; like myself. I have come to understand that her qualities are admirable, and her magic gifts - an eye perpetually attuned to beauty, a seeking mind and heart for marvel, and a belief in "the glory and the dream" are gifts that are innately mine. Lucy always had them, the child-me possessed them, but did not see their worth. Now, as I see more and more people around me lose their wonder and vision, and turn their gazes to the trivial, I realise that this "magic" is what makes life so wonderful for me, and that the qualities of the little girl Lucy are wondrous and rare. I feel supreme joy in my being, and in the beauty of the world, and vow never to lose it.

Ida Rentoul-Outhwaite and the Glory of Solitude

I love solitude. There is a supremely powerful and elemental feeling that attends me only when I am alone in nature. Nowhere else, and at no other time do I feel my thoughts attune themselves so much with the infinite - do I become so convinced of the vital connections between myself and everything earthly and unearthly - do I hear and feel the rhythm of the wild.

Often I feel the urge to forsake society for a shadowed space of trees - therein to wander, slipping in between the boles; softly to tread the mulch of fallen leaves and touch the silk and shiny new-growth budding at the tips of twigs... I am ever drawn to the places of beautiful desolation, beyond the signs of human influence - such as a deserted shoreline lit by lonely stars, or an airy pinnacle overlooking a valley-basin  filled with trees and ebbing clouds.

This is not to say that I am antisocial - that I misanthropically detest the company of others and find no enjoyment in human society. On the contrary - I love the company of friends, and rejoice in the discovery of kindred-souls, delighting in our mutual sympathy and inspiration. Despite all that however, I have a wildness in my soul that feels most fulfilled when alone among the things of nature. There I can dance within the wind and walk beside the creatures of the wild. There I feel myself a part of something vast, eternal and powerful, and paradoxically (when I am so awed by the majesty of nature) I am at the same time so aware of the grandness of my identity.

I cannot adequately describe the word-transcending freedom and glory of this kind of solitude - the kind of exultant isolation that the Romantic poets understood. To "wander lonely as a cloud" comes close - but does not express the whole...

Perhaps the art of Ida Rentoul-Outhwaite, Australian artist of the early twentieth century, can help me to convey the glory in the solitude my pen can only falteringly express. As you will see from her paintings and ink-drawings - she was a sister-wildheart of mine.

"The Little Witch" is probably Outhwaite's most famous painting - an illustration for the book Elves and Fairies, published in 1916. I love this picture for Outhwaite's ability to convey the tempestuousness of the young witch's spirit through her stormy hair, while the tree is deliciously Rackham-esque. This witch wears a dainty muslin gown - proper for a young lady of the town (outlined below the hill) - yet no demure maiden is the girl standing ready to take off into the unlimited freedom of the air, wearing her dramatic green cloak and peacock-feather hat and surrounded by her familiars the frogs and the cat - while the bats call to her to join them in jagged flight.

While this image for The Enchanted Forest has some similarities to the previous painting (with both using bats as a motif) this bat-rider is even more at home in nature than the witch. I love this painting for its evocative depiction of the beauties of an Australian marsh, with glass-like water; the transient yet constant presence of the reeds, and their silhouette against the sky. I can almost smell the water, hear the high squeaks of the bats on the edge of hearing, and feel the cooling breeze of twilight ripple the water and lift the rider's gauzy wings.

"Echo" is still more ethereal, with an overwhelming impression of wind and loneliness and longing. I am awestruck by Outhwaite's ability to depict a reflective surface - the surface of a shallow lake - using only black ink and white paper.

"The Last Fairy" has a mournful title - but the image itself does not strike me with a sorrowful feeling, rather one of wonder - the kind of wonder I feel when I am sometimes struck by something marvelous and strange in nature. This fairy stands beside a glowing pool - but lit from what radiance? Surely not the moon? I am also excited by the ultimate blackness of the forest behind her.

"Fairy of the Snow" is a picture full of elemental power. This comes closest to expressing my sense of the grandeur of the isolated self - a snow-spirit standing on a lonely rock, delicate beside the massive mountains behind her, but stronger than they, for she can cover their stern blackness in flurrying, terrible and glorious whiteness...

"Moonrise" - probably my second-favourite of all Outhwaite's artworks. It expresses my feelings sometimes when I, like the girl in the picture - leave the warmth of my house for the brighter moonrise.

My absolute favourite of Ida Rentoul-Outhwaite's pictures - "Ti-Tree". I don't know exactly why this one speaks so strongly to me - perhaps because I love to climb trees so much, and find such beauty in a windswept tree. Perhaps it is because I know there is an exhilaration to facing the the elements - riding and swaying on a whipping tree, feeling danger and delight in equal measure. Perhaps it is because the girl seems part of that illusion by which the moon appears to race in the sky through speeding clouds. Who can tell? Nevertheless, such is the wonder of solitude, and the power of nature.