It's raining in California. As I write, the sky thunders as hail and wet come down triggering mudslides, flooding, sinkholes and other manners of calamity across the state. The land is saturated from days and days of preciptation. 

This weekend, between storms, my partner, our dog and I, needed to get out of the house. We took a short drive to Mori Point, a favorite among locals for hiking and whale watching. Our go-to trail winds along the Pacific Ocean where in sections the cliff face drops to angled boulders and seafoam. California Sage greens the hills on one side, the vast expanse of the ocean on the other.  There’s a majesty here that’s impossible to ignore, and often I’m overcome. How is it that I've come to live among such beauty?  
 
My partner, a biologist, wanted to inspect the freshly filled natural ponds for eggs – a sign that the mating season for the frog he helps protect (the Pacific Chorus Frog) had begun. I was curious to see the land after so many days of rain. What would our old trail look like? Would it even be there?
 
Our path (so far) has survived albeit in many places quite slushily.  As we surveyed and plodded, there was the distinct feeling of being surrounded by water. Yes, there was the brooding ocean crashing and receding before us, but also a thickness in the air, an impending storm darkening overhead, the squishing up of waterlogged land that held each step, the jumping over and then eventual trudging right through of mud puddles. As we made our way down from the crest, we heard the trickling release of groundwater as it flowed into freshly dug channels.  
 
It wasn't raining, but it was as wet as it could be. How amazing that water, even in its diversity of forms – cloud, wave, stream, puddle always finds a way, I thought. I watched how it took the path of least resistance, around, over, down and through. It doesn’t overthink or analyze. It is instinctive. Over time, this instinct reshapes the world toward that which favors its flow. What power. What intelligence.
 
One of the things that water has instinctually found its way into is our own flesh, and indeed the bodies of all living things. Water is the molecule of life. We know this as do all living creatures. The chorus frogs had indeed decided amid all the rain that it was time to get busy.  
 
We are mostly water. But do we recognize the strength this gives us?  Rather than initiatory action, water connects us with the intelligence of allowing. This is a different way of orienting that requires feeling for what lives below our heads and into the immense container of our bodies. When we learn to feel ourselves in this way, we recognize a predominate inner pull towards some possibility that will set us free.  This allowing is the intelligence that can overtime carve through what our minds perceive as intractable, dense and immovable. We need look no further than the ways our infrastructure continues to be upended by these superstorms. 

Yes, this is difficult. And yes, I feel much care for those who are deeply impacted. At the same time though, I'm encouraged. This force, that lives within all of us is powerful. If more of us trusted the innate intelligence that resides in our bodies, what systems might crumble in the wake? This is why I do the work I do. 

As we made our way to the car before the first raindrops fell, I found myself wondering how I might move more like water this year? Rather than continual pushing towards some desired outcome, what would it be like to allow and follow what is? What ease might I discover if I navigated my days with this utmost trust in my feeling self? 
 
I pose the same question to you my friends, as you feel into the container of your body and the wise water that moves within you, what allowing is ready for your yes?