With such topics as Iraq, the “War on Terrorism”, celebrity serial killers, or America’s Next Top Idol Weight Losing Bachelor(ette) Dancing Model hogging the headlines or vying for our attention, it’s sometimes difficult for the real beauty and magic of life, that is still alive and very well, to be heard. However, that’s why there are people like me.
For example, who speaks for the clouds? Well, clouds speak for themselves, but ever so quietly (most of the time), and majestically.
In the summer time, Arizona is a wonderful place to watch clouds form, and gently waft their way across the sky. We can see them boiling up to the east and south of Phoenix, gathering up energy as the day (and heat) wears on. When the air cools as the sun’s intensity abates, the clouds “go mobile” unleasing torrents of rain during the season locals refer to as “monsoon”.
Moved by the now active, electric atmosphere, they undergo a change in their molecular structure, as the water vapors coalesce into droplets, and the droplets coalesce into aquatic droves that then descend, like stampeding wildebeest from the heavens, bringing their life-sustaining presence and revitalizing energy back to the surface. That must be some kind of magic carpet ride.
This is all by intent, and by design. This cycle and system of replenishment did not occur by chance. How does a water vapor know when it’s time to change itself into a raindrop? How do groups of raindrops decide that the conditions are right for them to descend to the ground? My sense is that they know, by simply being what they are.
When you think about it, what clouds do is no small feat. In fact, it’s more of a miracle. They float across the sky, literally levitating, yet they carry thousands of tons of water, which, when the conditions are right, they drop on us, or that’s how it appears.
In actuality, clouds don’t “carry” tons of water, as a very large bucket might. Instead, being collectives, they are tons of water; in the form of microscopic water vapors.
Clouds form in warm air masses; the fact that they are comprised of microscopic “vapor particles” of such denseness that they have a massive appearance, is remarkable unto itself. When an air mass cools, it loses its ability to suspend itself, as under cooling, water vapors reform themselves into the familiar drops we know and love as rain.
Maybe the real salient point to take from all of this talk of clouds, is that water is always around us, or better yet, we are always “in” water. Clouds are but massively collectivised formations of water vapor, formed from the water that is always in the air, and always changing form.
Water, which has shown remarkable ability to “record” and “store” information, including the intention behind said information, makes up over 70% of the composition of our body; an even higher percentage at birth. Given its ubiquity and importance, we would do well to appreciate this miraculous molecule. It’s always close to home, because water is our home, and how we treat our water is a fundamental indication, of how we are treating ourselves.
To hold our water as sacred, is to honor and care for self.
