Prayer for Rain

We’re waiting. We’re ready. We’re told it’s coming but it hasn’t happened, and we’re wondering, will it ever come? This four- year North American Drought gets scarier by each crusty day.

The Santa Monica Mountains near my home are brittle and brown. The riparian shrubs shrivel while the mule deer and the coyote visit our backyards seeking moisture.

Climatologists said a significant rain would fall by December that some 60 inches (now revised to 30) could dump by the time the rainy season ends. Now, hours away from an alleged heavy weekend storm, we’ve not seen much but for a sudden and subtle shower, just wet enough to slicken our driveways. Is it wishful thinking to believe the headlines that read “95% Sure El Nino Coming”?

In the Jewish religion there is a special prayer that asks God for rain. The aptly named Prayer for Rain is an acrostic poem written by the medieval mystic Elazar Kalir. It is recited on the final day of Sukkot, the harvest festival that immediately precedes the rainy season in Israel.

The idea of a prayer for rain conveniently reinforces my need for something “bigger” than mere mankind to end the drought.

Cavalierly I appeal to the heavens. “Please, let it rain,” I whisper to some otherness as I watch the slate-colored clouds cross the ocean towards land. I pause to see if the nimbo-cumulous open their silver lining to rain upon our coastline.

Mostly, they evaporate. Ah, so much for my whispering wish- craft.

The writer Kalir might have been a magical thinker too. It is not uncommon for poets to hear voices, imagine things, be inventive. In the prayer he speaks of an angel of rain, Af-bri, who does things very much the way I would like to see things get done: Af-Bri “overcasts the sky, forms clouds and precipitates them, making them rain.” Specifically on Israel, Moses said, for Israel was “peculiarly dependent on rain.” Based on the drought statistics, I would say Southern California is also peculiarly dependent on rain right now. But let’s look to the sky.

During 2012-2015 a persistent atmospheric high pressure system over the Eastern Pacific Ocean has been disrupting typical storm tracks heading west, creating dry weather conditions for the West Coast. The pattern is called: The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, or the Triple R. Such a nickname! Leave it to scientists to make up a silly name to coax humor around a condition that like a domino effect has the potential to manifest catastrophic global conditions. Nevertheless, this phenomenon has exacerbated the dry climate indigenous to Southern California. Thank you science for explaining things.

Science, as it were, just might be the kind of “angel’ necessary to make water. Because we share similar ecological characteristics with the Mediterranean, an Israeli company is sharing its drought-busting desalinization technology with the county of San Diego. If the desalinization works, couldn’t we say our prayers have been answered?

Could it be that when Kalir writes about his country’s dependency upon water, he could be writing about that place as a metaphor for something that we all are? That all of us, and most living beings are dependent upon water, and thus fundamentally there is no difference between us? After all, the human heart and brain combined add up to 65% of total body water I contend it is un-peculiar to be dependent on rain!

I think the best part of Prayer for Rain is Kalir’s understanding of a judicious rainfall. “May [The Divne] apportion due portions of rain….” By asking for the right amount of rain, during what should only be the rainy season, Kalir acknowledges the dirtier side of a big storm, like an El Nino event that can cause flash floods, turn boulevards into “rescue” channels paddled by canoe, drown folks in their own cars. My own “Nino” event happened in 1997. Let’s just say it was fairly rough going when a saturated sloping hill pushed tons of mud through the back kitchen door, yellow taping my home for several weeks before I could return. For years after I suffered a post- traumatic stress disorder response by curling into a ball on the sofa anytime it rained.

The concept of “apportioned portions” also paints the prettier picture of a good rainy season for California, with a hearty Sierra snowcap providing enough water to quench the needs of 39 million residents who live here. With the right infrastructure (we might as well pray for that, too), the state should be able to sustain its ripe status as the 8^th largest economy in the world, bearing potential to advance to 7^th place. As a California-centric, I grow excited by the thought that with the apportioned portions of rain California’s aqueducts and reservoirs would be replenished, and San Joaquin Valley homeowners would not have to belly up their position at the top of the state’s agrarian hierarchy. Those folks will be able to live out their days on apple farms, alongside their livestock, once again returning to the simple luxury of flushing toilets and washing dishes.

As a vintner I want a judicious rainfall but hope it doesn’t rain during the harvest season when the grape asks for sunshine, not rain. Rain mixed with sunshine will mold the delicate fruit and disrupt the apportioned portions necessary for producing a good pour. I hate when that happens.

The tradition of a daily morning hot water and lemon, or an annual new years day walk with a long time friend are some of life’s rituals that bring comfort to me. Whether it be age, or just life’s bumps and bruises, abrupt change and exacting surprises rattle me more than ever. Ritual through meditation or prayer or just something one does everyday can allay the fears and doubts that arise in the frightening world that is ours. It feels really good to know that some things can stay the same. I think the Prayer for Rain annual reading addresses this same need: it is a tradition that reassures.

Like most Californians, I am desperate for rain, and Kalir's  medieval poem has given me permission to make up my own invocation for a wet winter. 

As I wait for the precious water to boil in the kettle for my daily lemon drink, I will close my eyes and solemnly say to something deep within myself, “It’s going to rain. Just enough. It’s going to rain.”