This rain is different from all the rest;
This rain falls here, inside of me.
And though I try to make it stop it by painting it,
I find that I cannot.
Inspired by the Agnes Martin painting This Rain.
Do not look at the darkness covering the Light. Instead, see the Light coming through the darkness.
~Aunidan Christi
Thanks for stopping in. Have a wonderful 2023.
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 
Enjoyed this different post of yours, for the introduction of the painting and for this great verse: “This rain falls here, inside of me. And though I try to make it stop it by painting it, I find that I cannot.” It is this never-ending search for beauty/light in life by art, words, photographs, or whatever it is you enjoy is what makes it so special. Wonderful, and 2023 is off to a fine start for you.
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it. There are a thousand ways to look for beauty in this life and a thousand different places to find it. I hope we’ll all find more than our share, and I hope 2023 is going well for you, too.
Dave,
Happy, happy, healthy New Year to you!
Andrea
Thank you Andrea, and the same to you! My name is actually Allen but I have several friends named Dave who comment here quite often.
Thank you. Every post is a solace, letting in the glimmers of light in the darkness – thank you for encouraging me to look more closely at the beauty everywhere. Blessings on 2023.
You’re welcome Catherine. I’m happy to hear that you see it everywhere. It would be such a shame to miss it.
I was googling the painting and I found this https://www.wikiart.org/en/agnes-martin/this-rain-1960 She wrote a poem about her painting called “Parable of the Equal Hearts”. It’s lovely.
I’m glad you found this and shared it. I like your poem too and the quote about the light coming through. I hope you and everyone has a wonderful and Happy New Year!
Thanks very much Lynn. That was excellent. Almost a Yin/Yang type of a feel to it. She must have been quite a lady. I would have loved to have had a chance to speak to her.
I can’t even remember how I found her or her painting. It seems like it all just kind of fell into my lap, like things sometimes do.
Have a wonderful new year!
Happy new year. I hope that we will all see more light than darkness in the coming year.
Thank you. I couldn’t agree more. We’ve had quite a stretch of turbulence.
Thank you, for all of your wonderful and informative posts.
You’re welcome Mary. I’m happy that you and others enjoy them.
The inspired poem is beautiful Allen. Please do share these more often. Wishing you and your family a bright and beautiful 2023.
Thank you Lavinia, and the same to you. And good health as well.
To you as well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and observations. I look forward to reading more about your wanderings in 2033.
Thank you Barbara. I hope there will be many of them in the coming year.
Thanks! i love your poem
Thank you. I wouldn’t dare call myself a poet but I’m glad you liked it.
Last month I spent a half day in my little cabin with the fire going and the rain pelting the tin roof. I decided it was time to memorize this quote from Thomas Merton. “What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone; in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes, by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the water courses everywhere in the hollows! Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it’s going to talk, I am going to listen!” (this may be a digression, but I could not resist as Thomas referred to “this rain”)
Thank you, that’s interesting. I also enjoy listening to the rain on the roof of this house. I recently re-read Merton’s “New Seeds of Contemplation.” Your quote sounds just like him!
Dear New Hampshire Gardener,
Thank you for all the joy, insights, quotes and natural history you have shared with your subscribers. I looked up Agnes Martin and found many other examples of her rain paintings.
We hope you have a very happy 2023. If you are ever in the Topsfield, MA area, stop by for a tour of the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary or Crane Beach dunes.
Doreen and Bruce Bolnick Topsfield, MA
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You’re welcome Doreen. I had to work today so I haven’t had a chance to look up this artist yet. That she did many rain paintings sounds a bit fascinating, so I’ll really have to do it.
If I ever get to Topsfield it may be the sanctuary that draws me there. It sounds like an interesting, nature filled place. My kind of place, in fact.
Thank you for this reminder to look for the light coming through.
You’re welcome. It’s something we should all remember to do as often as we can, I think.
Beautifully said, Allen. Let the poet in you come out more often in 2023, please. The quote you chose is perfect to accompany the painting, just perfect, IMHO. And I always enjoy the discussions between you and Dave. Thank you.
Thanks Ginny! I never knew there was a poet in me but I’ve gone through many changes this year, so that might as well be one of them.
Dave and I have been good friends since high school and we know each other well.
Yes,
Through the darkness is new light on the other side.
I hope more will realize that truth.
Happy 2023 to you as well. I bought a new snow blower yesterday, and it’s going to be 60 this week. We’re certainly continuing with a whole new weather pattern. 🙂
I had to laugh at that Judy. The year I bought our first snow blower we had one flake land in the back yard.
Thanks for all the great posts! Happy New Year!
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You’re welcome. Have a great 2023!
May your New Year be filled with plenty of time to find your own joy
Thank you, and may you find the same.
When I read this I assumed “this rain” to mean depression that someone felt inside themself, and not to refer to rain at all. Rain was just a metaphor.
Since it “wrote itself” I honestly can’t say because it really didn’t come from my mind. But, I do think that you are spot on. I’ve known a few artists and unfortunately many are indeed depressed and many are substance abusers, as they say. Knowing this, I’m sure my subconscious or wherever these things come from just put two and two together and came up with what you read here.
That depression might seem like a rain falling inside us is certainly very plausible, if not likely.
I’m going to have to look the artist up and try to find out more about who she really was.
Thanks for helping me understand what I wrote!
It was just the impression I had of the photos and what was written in combination.
It’s perfect!
I think ‘This Rain’ is likely someones very personal unique rain. And although most of us have had such an experience, it’s different for each of us, universal as it may be. ‘Drizzle’, From your lips to the weather god’s ears.
Since the artist has passed on I doubt we’ll ever know her intentions. If her title was just a marketing strategy it was one of the best I’ve seen. It sure got my attention.
But I think, as you say, that it was a very personal thing. She died in Taos, New Mexico and as you know rain is a very precious, welcome thing in such places.
Right now you are experiencing your rain, and long may it last.
After everything this life has brought my way, I’m not sure I still have a bucket list, but if i did, Taos would surely be on it, rain or shine.
Yes, I’d love to go there someday.
I realize this response could be construed as missing the point here, but when did that ever stop me? Right here in my neck of the woods it’s all rain all the time right now… and that is a welcome thing indeed. And yes of course, to quote Eric Idle, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
There is no point, really. The title of this painting just reached out and grabbed me and stopped me dead in my tracks like nothing else ever has. Why “This” rain? Why not “The” rain, or yesterday’s rain? “This rain” is such an odd thing to say, I thought. And then I wrote what you see under the painting as a way to help myself understand, I suppose. Actually, it was another thing that wrote itself, and I’ve learned to pay attention to those.
The whole thing was just so powerful and unexpected I doubt I’ll ever forget it.
I’m glad you’re getting some rain. May it drizzle gently upon you until all the lakes and reservoirs have been refilled.