One of the great pleasures in life during our time in the desert was monsoon season. Mrs. tVM and I enjoyed sitting on our covered decks and watching the lightning flash and the rain pour from the sky in bucketsful. It was wondrous and awe-inspiring.
Since moving to the hobbit house a week ago, Clarence and I have survived two significant thunderstorms in the middle of the night characterized by flashing lightening and the hypnotizing and sleep-inducing drumming of raindrops on our metal roof.
We woke this morning with heavy storms in the forecast and proceeded to batten down the hatches, which doesn’t involve much in a 10×20 shed. Wisely, we put the cushions of the lawn furniture in our nearby vehicle and inverted the Adirondack chairs. After cleaning the house, I made a cup of tea and sat on the porch, Clarence at my side and watched the storm approach. 
Mrs. tVM kept us abreast as the storm reached her across the river in Minnesota about 15 minutes before it climbed our hill.
When the rain arrived, Clarence moved inside. I remained on the porch.
I thought about individual raindrops. They race to the ground to quickly to count. We take them for granted as we focus on ‘the big picture’ while overlooking the minute, individual players responsible for it. We are inclined to do the same with life. War, hunger, and poverty come to mind. 
We are aware that each exists and acknowledge that each is not good, yet we focus on the big picture, the numbers, and the individual players at the smallest level pass in anonymity. In America, for example, we take time to honor our dead soldiers and that is good, but do we ever think about the peripheral casualties of war, the innocent caught in the crossfire? We acknowledge hunger and poverty, but how many of us have physically gone into the ghetto and stared it in the face?
‘They’ say that one raindrop is 2 ml of water. That calculates to one-and-a-half trillion raindrops over a square mile in five minutes, 1,580,088,782,700. It has been raining steadily for over an hour, that’s over 50 trillion raindrops. I return my attention to one drop and will not take it for granted.
Chief Yellow Lark’s prayer includes this plea
“O Great Spirit… make me wise so I may know the lessons you have taught your children, the lessons you have written in every leaf and stone.”
The Great Spirit blesses us with uncountable lessons every day through the wonders of the natural world we are invited to live in. Watch for them and take none for granted.
Mitakuye Oyasin
Simple. Soulful. Beautiful.
Blessings