For our New Year’s Eve, we’ve been given rain, lots of it - over four inches yesterday, and today looks to be the same. Normally, our falling water is restrained to names like Bridalveil, Vernal, Nevada, and the greatest of them called Yosemite, but on this gray day, air and earth alike are overwhelmed by the wet. From everywhere it seems to arrive as each quarter of the sky tries to outdo the next. To everywhere it seems to go. Equally the water pours over the rocks and trees, soaks the roads and trails, and swells the rivers, exchanging our ease of travel for its own. So, while we fight to stay warm and dry beneath this elemental force, perhaps fighting to hold on to our comfort and holiday plans against its torrent, it will nonetheless move. It will drive sediment down from the mountains; it will wash novel bends in the streams. It will carry sustenance to the meadows, and as it must, it will carry us into the new year. This planet provides motion besides an annual orbit round the sun, beyond the mere counting of days. Sometimes those motions bring rain. However, the accumulation of those steps in this unknowable, enduring dance has yielded not only the majestic Yosemite Valley but each one of us, too, capable of greeting it and deeming it so. Today is just another day, a rainy day at that. But like any other day, it demands from us both due attention and wonder for whatever comes next. #yosemitenps #yosemite