Urban rainforest

[desperance]

Some say the world will end in fire, but they're wrong. The rain would put it out.

The world is a watercolour, and it will all be washed away in fading smudgy soggy streaks. Entropy is inherently wet.

In other news - but no, there is no other news. It is still raining. It always has rained; it always will have rained. Thou shalt not blaspheme against the rain, which is sempiternal. Which is the first time I have ever used that word, because I never had a use for it before. A thing may be eternal but have had an origin, a starting point, everlasting-from-here; the rain is not. In the beginning was the rain, and in fact it was already raining.

I was never religious before, but by thunder I believe in the rain.

I have been to shop, and not so much splashing through puddles as wading through lakes. Granted, I went across the moor: but the moor is full, like a sponge lifted out from the bath; it is leaking from every corner. The gutters have flooded the pavements. Courteous drivers occupy the high point of the camber, but not every driver is courteous; I would be wet from the armpit downwards, even if there wasn't the actual rain. I feel ... diluted; if my boots weren't waterproof, I would be dissolved entirely below the ankles.

What would be the elements, I wonder, of rain-worship? What would you actually do? Incense and candles and such are obviously out; but so I think are temples, in so far as they have roofs, which by definition deny the rain. I suppose there could be singing and dancing, tho' music would be difficult except for water-organs and the like. What else...?

Comments

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

1) I suggest that this might work for you:

"Yet another cat myth from the mysterious Orient is that of the Korat, a blue grey cat. They were originally called Si-Suwat, meaning "grey cat". However they were later renamed by King Ramu V of Siam after their region of origin. Their blue-grey colour resembles a rain cloud, and these cats are used in ritual processions meant to bring rain to the fields. This is what a local poet had to say about them:

"The hairs are smooth
with roots like clouds,
and tips like silver,
and eyes that shine
like dewdrops on a lotus leaf."

Unlike the royal Siamese, they are linked with the farmers, who carry one in procession, while they themselves chant and pray to the sky gods. After the procession, the water is sprinkled on the cat's face so as to induce rain."

I msut say, though, that sprinkling water on a cat's face is more likely to induce wounding.

2) I'm having an H Rider Haggard moment - step once into the fountain and you are eternal, but step twice and you are destroyed.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Synchonrised swimming,
Ducks as sacred animals.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colman_of_Templeshambo

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

I hesitate to mention it, but I think you may be getting a little preoccupied with the rain thing. But anyway:

> What would be the elements, I wonder, of rain-worship? What would you actually do?

An episcespalian religion would have transubstantiation of the soggy messiah incarnate, believing that a suitable saucepan can change rain into drinkable water, or indeed snow into not-very-good sorbet. But mainly you'd need elaborate purging to get rid of all your body's hydrophobic molecules and replace them with nice hydrophilic ones. I'm not sure how good that would be from a metabolic point of view.

[song-of-copper.livejournal.com]

Rain worship: I should think communal puddle-splashing might work. The donning of ceremonial cagoules and galoshes would be indicated, also.

Perhaps a solemn game of poohsticks, the sticks being scrutinised by someone druidical - with a view to decoding any omens that may be associated with their trajectory.

Repeated incantation of "The rain it raineth on the just" would get everyone into a slightly damp trance.

And a joyous community sing of "Isn't this a lovely day to be caught in the rain" would round everything off nicely.

Tlaloc would be appeased most beautifully, I'm sure.

:-) I could go on...

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

A colonaded (made of stalagmites and stalactites of course) temple with an open-air space in the middle, but roofs around, so the holy rain can be led through guttering to a Labyrinth of Knossos in the open courtyard.

Heretics will be chained to an altar, with a roof to remove them from the sacred downpour, with a small hole that dispenses a single drop on their forehead every second.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Rain-worship with dancing and singing and splasing. And Gene Kelly...

[anef.livejournal.com]

Every house would have an impluvium. And people would dance about - er - rain-clad. Leading to colds.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

...and colds are like rain on the inside. Yay!

[cinderberry.livejournal.com]

*boggles* Snot-worship! Do not want!

[carandol.livejournal.com]

I think a rain temple would probably have lots of gutters and flumes and pipes and gargoyles arranged in fanciful ways so that the rain falling at the top of the temple would rush and gurgle and splash its way to ground level before washing lovingly about the feet of its worshippers.

When I was very small I spent a lot of the time with both legs in plaster, so I didn't get to go out when it was wet. When I finally got out of plaster and learned to walk, one of my earliest memories is of asking if I could go outside and watch the rain run down the gutters. I donned my little red wellies and my huge yellow sou'wester, and spent a happy hour just watching rain rush out of drainpipes and along gutters and down drains. I was obviously an early and instinctive rain-worshipper.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

That South American musical instrument that sounds exactly like the sound of rain. Also didgeridoos, but that's only because I like them.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Rainsticks! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainstick) Of course! (We had one once, but it leaked, alas...)

And didgeridoos absolutely - but do they play in the wet?

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

*laughs out loud*

We feel your pain. :)

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Rain worship must have absolutely the minimum of ritual requirements. The human being is waterproof. Our clothes (mostly!) are not. Water falling on us in certain circumstances commands imprecations and fear of illness to come. Water falling on us in other circumstances commands stretching for a beach ball or a loofah.

Want to worship rain? Go skyclad.

Not, perhaps, to be recommended on the Town Moor in November . . .

[euphoricstimuli.livejournal.com]

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/03/18/stories/2007031800200800.htm

saw this on around the world in 80 gardens, thought it was a marvelous idea.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Wind chimes, of course, and the rain-stimulated variant. You could have those going all the time, sort of like Buddhist prayer flags.

Group worship could include both puddle jumping and the re-enactment of the rain scene from Singin' in the Rain. Possibly the umbrella-wielding version of a drill troop as well.