I am spoiled—on purpose. Though I live in western Washington state, which is the butt of every joke about rainy climates, it hardly ever rains where I live (on the Strait of Juan de Fuca).

I am spoiled because I have chosen to live in a tiny rainshadow where the annual rainfall is about 10”—the same as Los Angeles. (Please don’t tell anyone else…during the housing boom we were overrun with outlanders hiking up land prices.) Because the vast, spectacular Olympic Mountains have our backs, we are blessed with mostly dry weather. To be honest, not always sunny, but dry anyway—which is nice, since I have a dog to shepherd outside all day long. Now I feel compelled to do it, insert cute pic of my adorable 15-year-old girl, above.

Anyway, this morning I lazed in bed awhile because—gasp—it was raining quite hard, and as I’ve said, I’m spoiled. Sure enough, 30 minutes later it stopped. Here’s another amazing thing about this slice of paradise: when it does rain, it almost always does it at night. How considerate is that?

Now here’s the really cool part. If I had only looked out the windows on the south side of my house this morning, all I could have seen was rain and a thick, gray low-slung hunk of clouds pressing down on me. Looking to the north, however, revealed that my neighbors in the San Juan Islands and British Columbia were enjoying a bright sunny day. (Sorry the photo can’t be more clear—this is a difficult thing to photograph. If you really look carefully you may be able to pick out the distant snow capped mountains of Canada.) I’ve seen that phenomenon a few times—and just as often the reverse—so I don’t begrudge them their lovely day. (Besides, the sun will most likely overcome this dampness here.)

It did get me meditating about edges of things and points of change.

I wondered how many times in my life a fresh wind was in the offing, just around the next bend—had I pushed on a bit farther down the trail. How many days have I wasted in grayness, not knowing the sun was shining in the other direction? How many opportunities were already rising up out of my chaos ready to present themselves had I persevered just a bit longer?

While I’m not one to dwell on regrets about the past, I do want to take this thought to heart and be more alert for these possible points of change in my life. We don’t always get such a sure sign, we don’t often get to SEE the sunshine just over there, which does inspire hope that we will reach it (or it will reach us). I believe we often see what we’re looking for, whether it’s what’s wrong with the world or what’s right with the world. What about you?

CONTEMPLATIONS

• Do you feel you are at some edge in your life?
• Have you noticed any new points of change lately?
• Did you do something about it?
• Are you aware of subtle shifts of energy, do you look for signs of improvement—and thus see more of them?

Meditate on another sky show here.