“Rainmaking is a  weather modification ritual…”

Wind bends the almost brittle but not yet wintered Poplar.  Then, snap.  A stick splatter – an irregular display appears like a Jenga mistake across the black top drive.   My wheels maneuver around the tree log at the end of the road, it is dark.   Morning yogis arrive on a tenuous note; I can feel it in their breath before they pick up the pen.  Creatures of symmetry are broken by wind.   Today, yogis balance on only half of the body.  We sit uncomfortably unilateral and seek convergence of air – alternate nostril breath.  Four counts in one side, six counts of retention, and four counts the other.   Over and over – we bridge.  We seek balance, centering ourselves amidst the chaos – an invisible science only the soul and body know.  We sit and sirens wail with a frequency that says full moon.  We sit with sirens that shriek of a collective disaster…scream of times when our tides are pulled into the mass hysteric.

I drive.  I wonder if I can see less or somehow my eyes are not used to this unseasonal mist rising like the mystery around the Appalachian range.  Something of a thrill – a worry – a hate – a love…. it depends. How do we feel when things don’t go the way our lineage expects?   The barista tells me, she feels scattered.  Inside a four walled room, there’s no shelter.    Desert dwellers do not expect wet, rain means a miracle.   Rain means that the dance has been heard.   Once we were active in the conjure.   Who are those who remember the relation?    The worry of course, when the rain doesn’t come, is natural.    Its’ natural our ancestral heart quivers with transgenerational love as winter does not settle.  And unhibernated squirrels run in circles fat drunk with confusion.  Their madness makes us think:  has our tribe done something wrong, has our dance been quiet to the Gods?

Allison for The Poplar Grove Muse