It’s the simple pleasures of life that keep us from going crazy.
The other day a dear friend quizzed me, “What is it about clouds that is so special? They have been around all the time.” That is just the point. For many people, and perhaps for most, clouds are like the air we breathe, seen but not seen, heard but not heard. To the common man, caught in the vicious trap of life’s mundane trials and tribulations, clouds are just a part of the visual mosaic. When was the last time you laid on your back and looked above at the mighty heavens to stare at the light-as-air clouds gently swift away at their own pace? Still thinking? There, I’ve got you stumped!
I’m a nature-lover. I’ve always believed clouds and cloudscapes are the greatest free of cost drama on earth. It costs not a penny to look up and feast your eyes on the vista of vanilla scoops scamper about miles and miles away. It’s a test of patience, for if your pass with flying colours, they magically reveal their beauty before your eyes. They are never boring, despite the persistence of the same gray cloud-cover. Nature composes endless symphonies and theatrical productions of the celestial skies. The skies are simply beautiful to behold. There is, perhaps, no other way to say it. Sheer beauty! The combination of form, position, gradations of light and shadow, and even colour in the late evening dusky peach and early morning fiery orange and golden hues is a feast to the eye, and enlightens the inner incandescence within that causes one to breathe a muffled, “Ah, the artist extraordinaire at work!”
The weather forecasters suggest that particular clouds arise from causative factors. These factors have an impact on tomorrow’s weather. In the past, masters of sailing vessels became skilled observers of the sky and could read the billboard notice with astonishing precision. That honed expertise resides with only a few people today. However it is an elephantine challenge to develop the skill, and an enormous feeling of contentment that comes forth when a personally made forecast holds true.
Nature helps us in seeing the obvious. Creating a habit of observing the sky when you first get up in the morning and before you retire to bed, and many times in between, gives one a sense of connectedness with nature. When in trouble, look up and you’ll find your answers. This is imperative in a progressively more high tech society. We need to bear in mind that our roots are in nature, and we overlook this fact to our own damage.
Planet Earth is unique because of the presence of water substance, and the fact that the 93,000,000 miles distance from the sun allows water to exist in all three of its states (gaseous, liquid, and solid). In chorus!
Cloud watching is an antidote to Boredom. There are people suffering from psychiatric and psychological disorders. The seek refuge in consultations with the shrinks who drill a hole their pockets! I’m not a doctor but I can prescribe an effective antidote — that is not an expensive prescription drug — is the habit of systematic cloud observing. Nature’s psychiatrist-free of cost!
Clouds are really a magic show of the sky. Water substance is continually appearing and disappearing. Where does a cloud come from and where does it go? Try and find out!
As Famous writer John Lubbock once said, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
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