Thank you for your wise teachings, your guidance, and the deep love and compassion you bring to the world. Thank you for your extraordinary generosity—making so much of your work accessible to everyone, offered on donation so no one is turned away. Thank you for trusting us to bring RAIN into children’s lives, for believing this practice could reach the youngest hearts. Your compassion has transformed countless lives, including ours, and every email from you carried such kindness that it felt like a gift. The way you show up in the world—with such open-heartedness and commitment to easing suffering—has shaped not just this book, but who we are as people. We are forever grateful.

Thank you for those four words in response to our first email: ‘Now this is interesting…’ They lit a spark of hope. Thank you for believing in Magic of Rain, for giving us creative freedom, and for trusting our partnership. When you said, ‘You found the perfect illustrator,’ you validated what we felt in our souls—that Avital and I were meant to make this book together. Thank you for understanding our vision, for seeing why the puddle and ‘investigate’ mattered, and for protecting our words. You made our dream come true by honoring what this book needed to be.

Thank you for guiding us through the labyrinth of the publishing world—for showing us who to approach, for being generous with your time and patient with our questions. Thank you for telling us that one ‘yes’ would be success, which helped us celebrate when the interest far exceeded our hopes. Thank you for calming our nerves again and again, for having our backs at every turn, and for genuinely celebrating this journey with us.

Thank you for being there whenever I needed a quick fix, an advice, a photo session, a graphic design session, recordings — always showing up with love. Thank you for documenting my illustrations, helping me refine them, making the voice in the meditation sound beautiful, and supporting me in every last-minute deadline moment.

Thank you for that blessed day when we bumped into each other again after decades on the mountains of Greece, for your immediate enthusiasm, your guidance every step of the way, your connections, the magic envelope, your edits, your inspiration, and for lifting us up when things felt impossible. You have been the fairy godmother of Magic of Rain.

Thank you for being the first person I called with this wild idea, for assuring me I wasn’t losing my mind, and for helping us map out how to make it real. Thank you for the tears in your eyes when you heard that first story, for your pride as we navigated every obstacle, and for believing—truly believing—this would happen. Fourteen years of friendship means you knew exactly how much this dream meant, and your faith helped carry us through.

Thank you for taking the big, menacing task of ‘making a website’ and solving it in what felt like five minutes! You created a beautiful, warm space that feels like a hug—exactly what Magic of Rain needed. Your generosity, your skill, and the care you put into every detail made all the difference. Thank you for making the technical magical.

Thank you for the singing that moves grief, invites joy, creates magic, and processes the month—all glued together by friendship. No matter how many times life knocks us down, we get back up again. Together, we’re unstoppable.
Time
After
Time

Thank you for ….the acupuncture needles, the nourishing broth, the steady presence. Thank you for truly being there, and believing in what we were creating. And thank you for living it—for practicing RAIN with your son and sharing how it transformed your relationship with him.

Thank you for being our village—for showing up on the mat and in life. You came early for tea, stayed late for questions, and turned a tiny yoga studio into a community that survived a pandemic together. You explored the deepest questions with open hearts, named what’s ‘real but not true,’ broke through either/or thinking, and practiced showing up for each other with respect, care, and curiosity. We went to museums together, sang karaoke, shared Christmas dinners, and invited each other to parties. You became our tech wizard, consent keeper, tea maker, video crew, and so much more. Your questions became our insights. Your practice showed us that RAIN works. You were the living laboratory for Magic of Rain, and this book exists because of what we discovered together. Thank you, Alexandra, Afroditi, Andra, Andreas, Anna, Cecilia, Christina, Conrad, Edith, Ekaterina, Frederic, Haroula, Heidi, Heike, Irene, Isla, Julia, Katherine, Keith, Maria, Mark, Meral, Michele, Neelesha, Patrick, Rinat, Sonja, Tina, Yann, and Zian.

Ζωή μου,
Αυτό είναι το πιο δύσκολο ευχαριστώ να γράψω γιατί δεν είσαι απλά κάποια που βοήθησε—εσύ είσαι το βιβλίο. Εσύ είσαι ο λόγος που υπάρχει, και κάθε σελίδα είναι ένα γράμμα αγάπης για αυτό που είμαστε μαζί.
Ευχαριστώ που ήρθες στη ζωή μου ακριβώς όπως είσαι. Ήσουν έξι χρονών όταν μου ήρθε αυτή η ιδέα, και τώρα στα δώδεκα έχεις ζήσει κάθε στιγμή αυτού του ταξιδιού μαζί μου—την ελπίδα και την απογοήτευση, την πίστη και την αμφιβολία. Η ζωγραφιά σου μου έδωσε τόσο κουράγιο εκεί που πήγα να τα παρατήσω. Και δεν θα ξεχάσω ποτέ πώς έκλεινες τα μάτια σου και ευχόσουν με όλη σου την καρδιά να πετύχει πριν πατήσω “αποστολή” σε σημαντικά emails—τότε που πίστευες ακόμα στις μαγικές ευχές. Ίσως τελικά δούλεψαν.
Αν και τα γράμματα του RAIN δεν μεταφράζονται στα Ελληνικά με τον ίδιο τρόπο, και δεν μπόρεσα να σου το διδάξω όπως θα το έκανα αν η σχέση μας ήταν στα αγγλικά, το RAIN έχει διαμορφώσει τον τρόπο που σε μεγαλώνω—τον τρόπο που ακούω, μιλάω, και κρατάω χώρο για όλα όσα νιώθεις. Τώρα στα δώδεκα, είσαι πια μεγάλη για ένα τέτοιο βιβλίο, αλλά ελπίζω κάποια μέρα να δεις πώς εσύ το διαμόρφωσες, και πώς με διαμόρφωσες εμένα.
Αυτό το βιβλίο είναι για σένα, επειδή υπάρχεις.

Thank you for being the heart and hands of our community. You’ve set up and taken down the studio more times than we can count, opened your home for garden retreats, solved endless problems as if by magic, and given students rides home without a second thought. You’ve asked about the book every step of the way, lived the ups and downs with us, and shown us daily what it means to care deeply. Your help over the years has been so constant and so generous that we can’t possibly list it all—but Mark, we feel it in everything. You’re a practical builder who built more than a space; you helped build a village.

Thank you, Dimitri, for offering to create the promo video—for seeing what this book meant to me and wanting to help. Your creative vision made Magic of Rain come alive in motion—you made the rain move, the emotions breathe, and the story dance. It is so special to get some ‘big brother help’ on this.

And, thank you so much, to the beautiful video work by Tina Koubaraki and to Natalia Abravanel’s soulful moving voice.

Thank you for telling me I’ve always been a good storyteller when I was writing the first version. It was so good to be reminded of my storytelling past. Thank you for bringing your sharp, careful mind to our contract—helping us think through everything that could go wrong and protecting us in the process. And thank you for holding down the fort with Zoe during the pandemic, giving me the space to write when inspiration struck.

Amore sheli, thank you for your endless hugs, your encouragement, your happiness every time i mentioned the book, your fascination with my artwork, your delicious food when I couldn’t stop working — all of it held me together. I

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Thank you to our parents for your love and support. Thank you for talking us through the business world we knew nothing about and asking about the book at every turn. Thank you for being genuinely, wholeheartedly happy for us—for feeling proud that we had an unusual dream and decided to follow it. You cheered every up and held us through every down. It’s so good to have you in our corner.

 Thank you for supporting me throughout this year and for embracing my constant need for connection while working. Thank you for showing up, for helping me focus, for encouraging me, holding me, hugging me, sharing my space, and welcoming me into yours. Your presence meant everything. This book — these illustrations — would not exist without you.

Thank you for being the first eyes on Magic of Rain when it was still so new and vulnerable. Our hearts were beating fast sending it to you—would this fragile idea make sense to anyone else? You welcomed it with gentleness, enthusiasm, and such encouraging kindness. You gave us courage to keep going. Thank you for holding our baby dream with care.

Thank you for your encouragement from the very beginning. Your belief in this project, from the very first moment, carried me through. You read the story in its earliest form and I continued to feel your presence and your belief every single day.

Thank you for guiding me through the deep and transformative journey of discovering and communicating with all my parts through IFS over the past years. This book could not have come into being without the continued  healing of my hurt parts — and without the understanding you helped me cultivate. I couldn’t imagine these cloud people without knowing my own parts so well.

Thank you so much for your support at the very beginning. You gave us so many tools that shaped the foundation of this project. Our book would not be where it is today without your early guidance and generosity.

Thank you for your beautiful photography. Your talent brings out the spark, joy, and beauty of anyone lucky enough to be photographed by you.

Thank you for that rainy afternoon in Berlin, walking through puddles with your camera. When your photo became my portrait for the book, it felt like the perfect touch of magic—me with an umbrella in the rain, for Magic of Rain. The synchronicity feels like a little wink from the universe. Thank you for capturing that moment so beautifully.

Thank you for your hawk eyes and your precision — catching every typing and spelling mistake, every missing comma. And thank you for being the first person to pre-order the book.

 My deepest gratitude. I came to you in the midst of a midlife crisis, with no idea what I was going to do with my life. Letting go of my art career was one of the hardest experiences I’ve ever faced. You gave me the tools to find my way out of crisis mode, and the time, space, and financial support I needed to work on this project. I am eternally grateful for this extraordinary social system that Germany provides.

Thank you for your talent in creating such a beautiful cover, and for supporting us through an extremely difficult transition. You were the one person who communicated with us clearly and consistently, guiding us through a moment that felt terrifying. Your presence meant more than you know.

Thank you, Marianna, for being so much more than my biology teacher from school—you’ve become chosen family. Thank you for proofreading the book with such care, for understanding RAIN deeply through your own practice with Tara Brach’s work, and for encouraging me at every turn. When I was in turmoil last year, you told me, ‘Don’t you dare change line of work,’ and reflected back all the good I couldn’t see in myself. You offer your help so fully and believe in me so fiercely. You are my champion.