"I've looked at clouds from both sides, now"

According to Wikipedia (and who can you trust if you can't trust that?) Joni Mitchell was reading a book on a plane, "Henderson, the Rain King" by Saul Bellow, where Henderson was looking out the window of a plane and saw clouds below. Looking out her window she saw the same thing.

The synchronicity was enough to generate the song.

I suppose if clouds do have illusions they're brought out by what we see in them, by the illusions in ourselves. Fool yourself and the cloud will fool you too.

See the truth, more specifically, see the beauty in yourself and the clouds will show it back to you.

At least, that's my theory for the day.

I had a chance to test this yesterday by taking time to watch clouds in one of my rare paired days off.

Time has recently been filled with writing, editing, reading, studying, working, dancing, walking, listening and processing. I like the activity but in the same way that my job in the Orchard focusses me so intently on people that it often ruins me for other normal human interactions then all this intellectual/emotional  focus can make me lose my sense of my feelings.

So I took time on a brilliant, warm afternoon, time to walk to Deering Oaks park, time to lie down on a branded Apple throw blanket, roll my backpack under my head and just let the cool breeze speak to me through the rustle of the trees.

In my experience people see clouds as kind of Rorschach tests, cognitive stimuli that cause reactions that can be objectively interpreted (if that's not a contradiction in terms). The interpretations tell all sorts of things about motivations, sociability, imagination - and such interpretations are very complex endeavors.

For myself, laying on the blanket, one leg crossed over another, warmed by the sun and free for an hour from the agreeable demands of my mental/emotional life, it was a pleasant exercise in letting my soul coast downhill, enjoying the feeling of simple experience, letting my thoughts jump like children, hopscotching to new things.

Sometimes I do see howler monkeys (like in the picture on the right) but mostly I just like to see the patterns, love the peace found in the colors.

Eventually I was joined by my friend Adira. We chatted about the tango flash event planned for today (very successful, more later) and things in general.

Some people were leaving trash from their little picnic - a lot of trash. Adira was kind but forceful in reminding them to move it. Dogs played nearby.

And eventually the moment ended. She went to fix a tire on her bike and call her significant other, I left to walk to the store to get a green pepper to make gazpacho for dinner.

The clouds stayed with me.

They were clear and lovely overhead and I cannot tell if they were speaking to me or not - what kind of sound they made, like that I hear (I experience it, whether I'm actually hearing it is up for debate) from mountains.

Maybe I'll have to climb a much higher mountain than previously if I'm to hear what a cloud has to say to me. I don't think sitting in a plane like Joni Mitchell (or Henderson the King) will do it.

Maybe they've been talking all along and I'm just too far away to hear it.

So I suppose I'll have to depend on what I see when I look at them - what I take away, based on what I see, what I allow my mind, heart and soul to leap to.

Based on who I really am.

Portland, Maine.