The Sweet, Earthy Perfume of Rain: It Has a Name--Petrichor!

 

Of the many natural phenomena that we earthlings appreciate, the smell of rain may be my favorite, the sweet, earthy perfume in the down wind. I once knew of farmers and people living on country roads who could predict rain was on the horizon. Even animals use their sense of smell to predict rain--chickens, pigs, cats and dogs seek shelter. Ravens squawk and cackle before a rain; bees fly into their hives.

In 1964 the scientific journal Nature coined a name for that pleasant smell: petrichor, from the Greek petra--rock + ichor--the fluid that flows from the veins of the gods. It is, in essence, the distinctive scent, usually described as pleasant or sweet, produced by first rainfall on very dry ground. It's a fresh, musky smell emanating from two combined sources: rain hitting the bacteria in soil and a plant alcohol called geosmin. When the rain hits the ground, tiny aerosols splatter and are carried by the wind.

Now, isn't that just like us humans to give a scientific phenomenon a lovely name. I like that.  Naming people and things brings honor and respect to them, and what deserves these sentiments more than the elements of nature upon which our very existence is completely dependent.

Rain in particular has earned a place of reverence in the O'Connor garden. Spring's abundance soon turns into scorching dry summers in south Texas. Rain is an ethereal gift; the garden will die without water, and rainwater is supremely preferable to the garden hose. And my monthly water bill.

But I'm not alone in my veneration of rain. Many writers have placed their characters in a setting of rainfall--Singing in the Rain made Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly famous, especially Kelly's happy rain dance after falling in love. Yet, not all stories about rain are cheery ones.

Sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" opens after a nuclear blast has obliterated the town of Allendale, California, with the exception of one highly automated house, the McClellan family home, that still goes about its chores serving the family as if they are still alive. At one point, the house's automation begins reciting Mrs. McClellan's favorite poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathering fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire,

And not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly;

And spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Teasdale published her poem in 1918 during WW I and the 1918 flu pandemic. Ray Bradbury's anti-war position aligned with Sara Teasdale's, and he borrowed the title of her relevant poem for his story.

A tree branch breaks a window in the house, knocking a bottle of cleaning solvent onto the stove, and igniting a fire. Mechanical rain showers from the walls until it runs out and the house burns to the ground. 

Bradbury wrote another story about rain, "All Summer in a Day." Nine-year-old Margot's family moved to Venus from Earth when she was four, but she remembers her life there. Venus experiences constant rain except for two hours on one day every seven years. Margot is the only child in her school who remembers the sun shining on Earth. Just before the sun is scheduled to come out on Venus, her classmates bully her and lock her in a closet until the sun is gone. Only when they have experienced the sun themselves do they understand what Margot has been trying to tell them, but it is too late.

While the phenomenon of an overabundance of rain can certainly be disastrous, rain is generally considered life-giving, cleansing, and in Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy, it is life-altering for each character.

Fourteen-year-old naval cadet Ronald Winslow is expelled from Naval College. He returns home to London unannounced and hides in the garden during a rainstorm. He opens his expulsion letter addressed to his father as he stands in the rainy garden getting soaked. When he later must go before his father in reckoning, the truth must come out. The crime of stealing a postal order is unfounded and Ronnie is innocent. His father accepts his word and begins to prepare for battle against the powerful Admiralty. He enlists the distinguished and costly barrister Sir Robert Morton to defend his son in court. No spoiler here. Watch the movie! 

The symbolism of the rain at the beginning of the story--growth, purifying acts of love and revelation, introduces the crusade in which each member of the family must now engage and whose lives will be forever altered.

Water has long been recognized in archetypal symbolism and world mythologies as a regenerative power, purification and spiritual revelation. It is the liquid counterpart of light, the the source of all potentialities in existence.

And that existence includes our environment, our beautiful planet that sustains us and is sustained by water, the flora and fauna that afford us our earthly paradise. We have a choice as well as a responsibility to preserve it. As my favorite rockers sang at Woodstock, "We've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

Next time that lovely fresh musky smell blows in from down wind, think of the ethereal fluid from heaven, petrichor, and say a prayer in thanks for rain and for all we have because of it.