{"id":704,"date":"2011-08-16T09:50:41","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T13:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=704"},"modified":"2011-08-16T09:50:41","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T13:50:41","slug":"rain-swim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/rain-swim\/","title":{"rendered":"Rain Swim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It is the week we look forward to all summer \u2013 the rented lake cabin, the family all together under one roof, the familiar routines of idleness. This is August and the lake is northerly, nestled at the foot of mountains, and so we pack sweaters and jeans and socks as well as bathing suits and sunscreen and flip flops. We come prepared, carrying more books than anyone could possibly read in a week, and then we pray for sun.<\/p>\n

Yesterday morning I woke early to gentle rain, cool air, clouds blanketing the peaks across the water. As summer draws to its inevitable close, each day feels edged with a scrim of sadness; I\u2019m always greedy for just a little more. Or, if not exactly greedy, at least aware that these golden days are numbered, that a month from now, back at home and yoked into fall schedules, summer swims will already be a memory. And so without thinking it over, I left my sleeping family, slipped out of the warm bed, into my still-damp bathing suit and down to the water.<\/p>\n

I wonder if there is any place more solitary than the middle of a lake in the rain at dawn. Alone in that chill, dark water, shrouded by mist and suspended in a dance of rain drops, I disappeared from myself. What a relief it is, to leave the mind and all its small preoccupations behind and to swim far from shore, out into the big picture. Lake, mountains, sky, rain \u2013 and me, one small, insignificant human body treading water within this vast, mysterious universe. I watched my pale arms moving before me, allowed my breath to carry me along on its rhythmic journey, felt the water\u2019s buoyant embrace, and offered up my humble prayer of thanksgiving: what a blessing it is to be here, a single note in this gloriously complex hymn that is our natural world.<\/p>\n

There were, finally, scents of breakfast drifting across the water, the dense, civilized smells of bacon and coffee summoning me back to life on land. My skin pricked with cold. The rain fell in sheets. Yet it was with some reluctance that I turned around and began breast-stroking toward shore. \u201cWithout a big perspective, we are only half awake to our life,\u201d writes Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfeld. \u201cLost in a thousand errands, and our small self, we are not truly free.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy, when lost in those errands, to remember the magnificence of this world. But nature’s beauty is always available, if we\u2019re willing to take the first step toward intimacy, to stop what we\u2019re doing and thinking long enough to quiet our minds and open our hearts and go forth.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t go swimming in the rain in search of anything but one more taste of this waning summer. The moment\u2019s profound teaching caught me by surprise, as much a shock to the system as the first slap of cold water on bare skin: Remember your interconnection with all things. Love the mystery. Be free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is the week we look forward to all summer \u2013 the rented lake cabin, the family all together under one roof, the familiar routines of idleness. This is August and the lake is northerly, nestled at the foot of mountains, and so we pack sweaters and jeans and socks as well as bathing suits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,30,40,14],"tags":[232,384],"class_list":{"0":"post-704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-connection","8":"category-gratitude","9":"category-mindfulness","10":"category-soul-work","11":"tag-jack-kornfeld","12":"tag-solitude-2","13":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}