Bloodstones

The other day, I said to my daughter, “Oh, it smells like rain.” And she agreed with me, but I doubt either one of us could accurately describe what rain smells like. In Australia, in 1964, scientists coined the name “petrichor” for the refreshing, cleansing smell of rain, after a particularly dry season. Petrichor comes from two Greek words meaning “blood of the gods” and “stone.”

Last night, my husband and I were watching a show about nature and it showed that elephants have such a powerful sense of smell that they can find water from deep within the dry, sandy earth. Other animals rely on elephants to dig and to find this water, so that they can drink from it, after the elephants finish. It turns out that, among many other wonderful things, elephants are enormous ecological divining rods.

Supposedly our human sense for smelling rain is better than a shark’s ability to sniff blood in the water. I think that is why I like shows about nature or observing nature around me. It’s such a keen reminder that we are so much more than our minds, and the stories that we tell ourselves. We are just complicated animals who have lost the awe for what our senses can tell us, and do for us. We need to remind ourselves of our own amazing ability to sniff out petrichor when we are wandering through dry spells in our lives. We need to take some time every day to just be in our senses, and to use our senses to lead us to cleansing refreshment and renewal when we think that our wells have run dry. We need to learn to trust our whole selves, and not just our minds alone, as without checks and balances, our minds tend to be a little tricky and deceiving.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.