I arrived in Parque Natural Sierra María-Los Vélez as a single raindrop, still full of water from elsewhere. I was the only water this path had known since the last person or ibex passed through. After more than a year without rainwater, the life-sustaining substance held in my body was easily recognized by all water-dependent beings. The few living plants and insects nearby, they all noticed me. Water always seeks itself.

Brittle twigs reached upward through fractured hardscape to the dust-laden sky. There were no birds, no bees, no movement. At first, it was difficult to bear the weight of complete silence. This type of silence, one I’ve experienced in bitter temperatures, told me that water did not flow here. Yet the battered limestone ravine spoke of torrential rains forcefully carving their signatures across this landscape. The two extremes, drought or deluge, simultaneously introduced the desiccated surroundings at Joya: arte + ecología / AiR, Almería, Spain. A sense of foreboding filled this parched lull between the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra Cazorla mountain ranges that revealed the effects of a rain shadow in a rapidly changing climate.

My home also lies in a rain shadow near the Olympic Mountain range in the Pacific Northwest. Rain shadows occur when atmospheric moisture is blocked from reaching land. As moisture travels inland on the windward side of a mountain, rising air cools, condenses and drops prematurely, leaving areas on the leeward side in drought-like conditions. These dry areas develop unique microclimates that are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather.

Before leaving home, I imprinted the shadows of raindrops on sunlight-sensitive fabric to bring here as a symbol of my wish for climate balance. Inside the dry barranco, I imagined the interwoven blue threads as a slow-moving creek seeping down into the sun-baked clay, with vegetation drinking it in, sharing it with pollinators and birds, allowing it to transpire, coalesce and fall again, set in motion to seek itself.

The next day rain came. The first raindrops to fall here in 13 months landed on the soil, my body and rain shadows from home.