One way to make rain, is to pour water through a sieve.   The idea is that by imitating something like rain ourselves, real rain will fall.

We call this sympathetic magic, and the more people involved, the better.   If we all ‘make rain’ together, “The Rainmaker” is bound to respond.  This kind of group rainmaking is probably the origin of the myth of the Danaides.

There is a better kind of magic.  Where we all act as if we are the kind of people we’d love to live with.  Seeing our neighbours and fellows as human beings, very like us, yet not us, and all the more interesting for that, even when they are being ‘difficult’.

That’s empathetic magic.   It works.  We can all do it.

And the more people involved, the better.