patience

It seems an age since I last posted: the rainy season has hit with a vengeance and days have been dark with rain, heavy with damp and sadly without electricity or internet access. The rain wipes out the satellite, often before it knocks over trees which wipe out the power. So I've been sheltering in the treehouse wondering if the mushrooms in the corners are edible. Seriously, I've been trying to find edible mushroom sites on the net without any luck for this region - I can however tell you what to pick in Queensland. So the rain is here. Ah, looks like Monteverde. The forest has awoken and proves to be a very mighty beast indeed. May is here with all his strength and her exuberance. I can't admit to enjoying so much rain, but I love the growth and can feel its energy in my body. Everywhere green pokes through things, sprout and sprout some more, buildings are pushed aside by pink, green, brown, white, purple tendrils reaching for space of their own, liebsraum.
There are respites: last Sunday Guy and I had a wonderful day riding down to the river, swimming, brewing coffee in a shower and riding further to the beach before tying up the horses at a restaurant to eat. Felt so good to be in the forest dashing along trails almost covered over by new growth, drips falling down shirts from fresh bright growth overhead. The river is full and the swimming is good, even if the water is a little muddy from so much run off.
Last week I harvested bananas and mangoes, the week before pineapple and oranges, this morning starfruit and guayaba - smoothies galore, delicious. We pick mangoes most mornings in kindergarten and eat them straight from the tree - now that is education. We found tadpoles in muddy puddles in the garden and are watching them develop - they grow fast, I don't remember them growing so fast when I was a kid. Wonder.
And why the title? The rain teaches me patience, watching the howlers sit soaking in the trees teaches me patience and my friends teach me patience, a lesson it seems I need to relearn daily.