Of Clouds and Cloudless Clear Blue Skies
Perhaps the most powerful metaphor…
… is alway just right there, just above us. But how many times do we never look up?
We rarely look at the sky. And I don’t mean a cursory glance up; I mean a whole body, stop in your tracks (or better, lay down on the ground on your back), and gaze upwards stare. Day or night. Day AND night. C’mon now, be honest—with yourself. When was the last time you did that?
Time for opened eyes.
Time to finally look at clouds.
Rows and floes of angel hair And ice cream castles in the air And feather canyons everywhere I’ve looked at clouds that way But now they only block the sun They rain and they snow on everyone So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all ~ Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now)
Time To Know Clouds
Science.
It’s the way the Universe works. It’s the way everything is made. Everything, we, are made of atoms and molecules and compounds of star-stuff. Every. Single. Thing is made this way. Which then forms the basis of the Universal Truth—we are kin to Every. Single. Thing.
Additionally, the most famous equation in all of science, the one that just about everyone can recite yet cannot understand, let alone fathom, (even among many scientists themselves), the one Dr. Einstein discovered as a Universal, foundational Truth: E = mc², tells us that all matter, all atoms, molecules, and compounds, are pure energy. Everything IS energy. Every. Single. Thing.
You.
Me.
Organic vegan whole wheat blueberry muffins.
Rusty hitch balls on red Ford F150 pickups. (Yes, even those!)
Clouds.
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The first Law of Thermodynamics (aka the conservation of energy law), states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change states. This is important for clouds, it’s important for us.
Where do clouds go when you cannot see them? Are clouds real? Can something be there one minute and then not the next?
Where do Dads go when you can no longer see them? Are Dads real? How can Dads be there one minute, and then not the next?
Where do Dads go when they die? Where do clouds?
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A famous and influential Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, used to say “See the cloud in your slice of bread. Taste a cloud when you drink your tea.” And he wasn’t joking. When you eat a slice of bread, you are eating a cloud. You drink a cloud when you enjoy your tea. A cloud is showering you when you are in your shower. You dry off with a cloud. You put on your comfy cloud PJ’s before you slip into the comfy cloud of your bed under the warm cloud of your comforter.
Question (aka Zen Koan): Where are the clouds in a cloudless clear blue sky?
Answer: ?
And What if it’s Not a Metaphor?
A Fable?:
“Papa?” she asked with the light of full sincerity in her five year old eyes. We were outside, with our feet bare, hand in hand and enjoying a rare moment of shared and quiet solitude away from the rest of the family who remained in the house.
“Where’s Grandma now?”
I knew she meant the question even as I knew she knew grandma had died. Death is an ungraspable concept to five year olds. Heck, death is an ungraspable concept to many 75 year olds, too. When asked a question like that from the heart of a five year old, one is wise to take it seriously, but they don’t need deep, philosophical answers. Five year olds just need your presence and full heart in return. As do most 75 year olds, come to think of it.
We had scattered Grandma to the winds—which was done without our help way before we actually released her ashes into the world. This was done in the moment of her final breath. That’s what final breaths do—they release you to the winds. So that you can join the clouds.
My little love bug, you asked: “Where’s Grandma now?” Look up. Grandma can be above you, in the sky and among the clouds, the fantastical place people point to when they are asked “where’s heaven,” even though most times you cannot see her; and, if you place your hand on your heart to feel what’s there, she can be inside you, in your heart, among those heartbeats you feel. If you can imagine her above you, and feel her inside you, then, little bug, Grandma is right there—inside the high above clouds, and inside your loving heart, and in all the places in between. Grandma is everywhere.
I placed my hand over her hand that was still on her chest, covering her heart, and feeling her heartbeats. You can feel her here, and when you’re quiet enough, you might even hear her. In those moments, Grandma will be saying “I love you.”
I pointed to the clouds that were evaporating in the warming skies.
And when you look up, you’ll see her there, too. Just like the clouds; just like the clouds when you can’t see them, everything that makes a cloud is still there. Everything that made Grandma is still here.
So I asked her: “Love bug, where do you think Grandma is now?”
She paused for a moment until the sweetest and softest smile formed that can only be formed on the face of a grandchild loved dearly by a grandmother—it was the smile of an old soul:
“Grandma is my cloud in the cloudless clear blue sky.”
Always.
Watch The Clouds
With the right eyes, you can learn a lot from clouds. With the right eyes, they can teach us everything we need to know about ourselves.
Sometimes we see patterns and imagine we can see “rows and floes of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air, and feather canyons everywhere.” Or bunnies or dragons or dinosaurs or birds. And then they all change. With time, everything changes. But there really wasn’t flows of angel hair, or castles made of ice cream, or canyons or bunnies or dragons…or anything else our amazing imaginations might conjure up upon the rich palettes of clouds. They were all illusions. Every. Single. One.
And then, they’re gone. It is the nature of clouds to be seen here one minute, and then the next, be gone.
Just like us. It is the same with our nature.
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We see and experience patterns and things in our lives too. Sometimes those patterns are lovely and beautiful and made of rainbows and unicorns and sprinkles; and sometimes those patterns are ugly, and hurtful, and made of sticks and stones and things that can break bones. And then, they change. And we realize those, too, were illusions—patterns in the skies of our lives that were formed from our own imaginations, no matter our intentions—good or bad. If we choose to judge them as beautiful or ugly, comforting or hurtful, those qualities were not inherent in the things themselves. Just like a bunny is never inherent in a cloud itself. We put the bunny there, and the angel hair; we put the beautiful and ugly there, too. We do that. In everything.
In reality, they are just clouds.
But the metaphor needs to be extended to something further—more than just the illusory and transitory things that happen to us, good and bad, that, with time and patience, will float right on by, or better, dissolve all on their own. “Believe that your problems are like the dark clouds in the sky, for soon they too will pass,” is a well-known and beneficial aphorism, but it’s likely not the most important one. For not only are we “star-stuff,” we are also, quite literally, “cloud-stuff.”
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
~ Prospero, from Shakespeare’s The Tempest
As science proves to us, nothing can be created nor destroyed; when we cannot see them, clouds are still hanging around. They’ve just changed to become something just out of our visual range of seeing them—invisible, but not disappeared. They are still there. We can sometimes taste them as organic vegan whole wheat blueberry muffins, or feel them as refreshing showers on a late spring day (if not rusty hitch balls on red pickup trucks); and sometimes even slide down them on an inner tube on an unexpected, but wished-for, “snow day” off from school, and then be warmed by them under a fleece comforter with a mug of hot cocoa. All these are cloud nature too.
Just like us.
Where will you go when you die?
It’s a question fit for us all, and not just the wise five year olds among us. We all should know the answer—and we all should teach the answer to our kids, early and often. It doesn’t take religion—god(s) need not apply, so it does not matter the faith tradition you may follow, or don’t. Instead, it’s a Universal Truth.
As I’ve talked about often in these spaces, we don’t “do death” well in our culture. Which is unfortunate because it is the most important thing to happen to us in all our physical incarnations. Of course there will always be mystery surrounding death; but there needn’t be fear or disgust or revulsion, ever. Death can be peaceful and skillful and instructive and, even in the midst of intense sorrow, beautiful. It helps to know what it’s all about. We have mentors among us, always. Kin. Kindred not only in spirit but in physical reality. We need only look up when clouds have graced us with their billowing presence.
In every sense of the word, we are clouds; each of us different, and unique, and precious, and illusory, and ephemeral, and ubiquitous, and translucent, and temporary. Each of us here in one moment, gone the next. But always everywhere. No different from clouds. We, too, you see, are subject to the First Law of Thermodynamics.
Questions: Where does Grandpa go when he dies? Where did my Dad go when he died? Where are YOU going to go when you die? And me?
Where does one’s life energy go if it cannot be destroyed?
Answer: Everywhere. To dwell among the clouds in a cloudless clear blue sky.
Exactly the place we came from.
Clouds come, and clouds go. What doesn't?
Clouds still at times block the sun; they will still rain and snow on everyone. And clouds, with the inconvenient storms they bring, may still get in our way of doing so many things. But clouds are so much more than that—and they don’t last long, unless you count eternity. May we see them differently from now on.
It might be time, now, to go outside… and look up.
Go see your cloud.
We in my family are soon going to reach the end of our “Year of Firsts” without my Dad. My Dad died in March of last year. But he didn’t disappear completely. He can’t. I’ve written this before, but maybe we can see it all a little more clearly now. My Dad, too, had to follow the First Law of Thermodynamics; my Dad followed the Elderings of clouds. So, truly, we never actually experienced a “Year of Firsts” without my Dad. My Dad was made of Moxee clay, Ford tractors, sage, twine, hop bines, irrigation water, burlap, blisters, sweat, and tears (and strawberry ice cream apparently); and he was made of cloud-stuff.
He’s always been everywhere, just beyond our ability to see him; invisible, but not disappeared. With Dad’s death, some things were lost, certainly; but some things, different, were gained—soulfully and absolutely. We live life like this now. This is how we live:
Ours was a year of firsts with my Dad a cloud in a cloudless clear blue sky.
And now, always.
“Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day
I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's life's illusions that I recall
I really don't know life at all”
Maybe we know just a bit more now—about clouds, and Dad’s, and ourselves; and our own lives that always include our deaths. Our Alchemy: with endless things yet still to learn—just beyond yonder horizon.
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~ k
Always and Ubuntu.
🙏🏼
Really beautiful Kert. It’ll be one I reread for sure. Clouds, breath, presence, change… ❤️
Again, love your words, Kert...