Head in the Clouds

Leaning into light.   

Welcome into this space of hospitality, wondering, pondering, wandering, reflecting on Life As Good. You are invited, and I'm hoping you will be finding here some encouraging thoughts for your own wandering and reflecting. I'm Jan. I live along foothills near Denver Colorado USA. I'll share more about myself as we go along. As for now, I'd like to share not about myself but my self... so... 

For beginning, what is going on with this cloud !!   

I'm following this stunning cloud circle, up and up an ever-curving road, this late morning,  rounding hills with stony granite tops and speeding, I confess, eager for seeing more and more of this magnificence showing up and showing off, the colors melding, morphing into still more dramatic palates. 

My jaw is wide open, and my mind is wondering, wondering, wondering, and my spirit is singing. I gasp a lot, every turn is bringing revelation. 

I'm going past a lake, a lovely view in itself, but who cares now, because today my eyes are all and only for this singular cloud, wonder of nature, surely.  

Dialed in. Focusing only on the growing depth, shifting weight and contours, and determined to get to the bottom of this cloud. 

Whatever it is, whatever it is becoming, I am going to find it, experience its splendor. Living in its power and glory. Knowing life within its changing light. 

I'm in the zone. Life as good. Exceptionally good. 

There is a bit of traffic, of course. Very light, thank heavens. Looking up and out isn't hard. These two-lanes are highly engineered so 'driving the road' is easy, the rock canyon a reminder you're edging out. 

I'm keeping my eyes on this ever-changing and constantly growing circle of water and air, seeing it expanding, and ever more wonder floods my senses, as The Cloud keeps at it, emerging with every rounding of a bend. I'm watching as more of the lower puffs appear within my view. I am hurrying to the top, hoping for a complete view. 

It is mesmerizing. And oh, so gorgeous. 

It is drawing me in. It is becoming, to these eyes, more whole.  Rounding hills, in Boulder Canyon searching for the whole of this magically back lit, and front lit, today's gifting from nature 

How is this happening, this big O of cumulus? I wonder. 

Living in Colorado, it is easy and important to learn a lot about clouds. I have. But what I most like, is wondering. How...  What...  Why... is this one or that one forming up as it is?  Wind and temperature and moisture saturation have everything to do with this, but why now, why here?  And this one!  

I've never seen a huge cumulus cloud with a big circle in the middle of a really grand circle. I really am not so interested in the details today. I just want to marvel. 

Rounding onto the final straightway, a huge open space awaits, and Yes!

The shape is completely in view. Not closed, as you can see, but open. That is very moving to me. 

Sitting now, just taking it all in. Permutations in shape, the cloud seems to have found its 'best self,' and is settled. Slight, almost imperceptible shifts in density, texture, color continue. But it seems to me this Cloud has found its way to being 

what it 'wants' to be. 

I take this photo. Does it do the moment justice?  Does it do the cloud justice?          Of course not. I let photographs remind me of, not so much what a thing looked like, but how it felt. Of course, a great picture helps me share the experience.  

 Driving on, just several hundred yards from the photo site, truly drawing as deep as I can into the heart of the cloud, I am now pulling into the parking lot that overlooks a high-country reservoir...

And the cloud is practically right on top of me.  I'm as close to being in the cloud as one could come. It holds me, a comfort, even as it it stirs me.  

Life as good.  I don't need to go on today, up and beyond this place. 

I'm here.