Remove Thyself ...

"Clouds come floating into my life,

no longer to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add color to my sunset sky."

Rabindranath Tagore

When high in the Smokey Mountains, my sister cried with her head extended from the car window. She had been anxiously awaiting the opportunity for my father to drive through a cloud so she could feel the soft cotton texture across her face.  To her dismay, there was only air.

In one of Shirley MacLaine's numerous books, she encourages the reader to look up at the sky and choose a cloud that pleases the eye.  The reader is to single out this cloud, thank it for its beauty and ask if it would disappear from the sky.  With eyes glued, the reader then waits for the magic to begin.

In my childhood, I would spread out in the grass next to my favorite tree and examine the passing accumulation of clouds.  I would watch them shift and take on differing shapes or just melt away in the sky.  Only once, as an adult, did I reverently ask a cloud to disappear.  I held my breath and within  five minutes, the cloud simply went away.  I felt so ashamed for asking a beautiful cloud to vanish I cried.  I vowed never to be so insensitive to any of the beauty in  nature.  It is all as it should be and I will respect the privilege of being an adorning observer.