Yesterday I was all set to show a friend of mine how to make soap. I carted all the oils and equipment over to my friend Nicole's house (who so generously offered her space) and got ready to set up, starting with the sodium hydroxide. When I opened it up, the entire one gallon bucket of lye was solid. There was some slushy lye goo on the top that I could scrape through and underneath it was completely hardened. At first I thought I could scrape some out but it was impenetrable. I realized too that in this state the sodium hydroxide might not be strong enough to use for soap making anyway. When I got home I looked around for some information about what could have happened but could find nothing. Finally this morning I read a little about the properties of sodium hydroxide and found out that it is extremely hygroscopic- it literally "attracts water molecules out of the surrounding environment". The wikipedia entry I read said that sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is so hygroscopic it dissolves in the water it absorbs. So, basically, my NaOH has been attracting water from the winter rain of the Pacific Northwest for several months in my garage and I knew nothing about it. Now I know. I will definitely make sure that the lid on my next bucket of lye is securely attached.

But I love this. While reading about hygroscopy and lye and such I found a picture of this little guy. The thorny devil. He is also hygroscopic. Go figure. He lives in the desert and has "hygroscopic grooves between the spines of his skin to capture water in". Imagine that. NaOH and thorny devils attracting water every which a ways. And what am I attracting into my life every which a ways, just because I am who I am?

At first I thought that the NaOH was a little silly for pulling in all that water- it's called having an affinity for water. It does, after all, turn itself into a solid mass of unusable ick. But who am I to judge? The lye was no longer usable for my purposes, true enough. It's not really here for me, though, I have to admit. I can choose to use it but NaOH is not mine. When it attracts water to itself it becomes less reactive, more at rest. Peaceful? What if we attracted everything that felt good to us in our lives- everything we had an affinity for? Enough so that we finally felt at peace. Non-reactive. We need to expect that it will come, though, set ourselves up for it. Just like that little thorny devil running around the desert with his hygroscopic grooves. Each tiny bit of water collects in those grooves and converges and grows until he has enough water to sustain himself in the desert heat. Maybe it's like that in our own lives as well. Each bit of goodness, no matter how small it seems now, joins with other bits here and there. If we notice the bits one by one as they show up, collect them like the thorny devil collects water, absorb them like the lye draws in the water, they will join together to form enough goodness to sustain us. In this life there is goodness to be had for everyone. We have to set ourselves up to notice it, though. Take stock of it when it enters our lives. Save a space to hold it in our hearts. And expect that it will come. Again. Expect that it will come.