The phrase, come further in, goes back to my reading The Chronicles of Narnia– when Aslan exhorts the children to step in further, to come through the door. Children seem to understand what this means. For me it is often just stopping and listening.

I just read an article in the New York Times Magazine by Jon Mooallem on cloud watching- and The Cloud Appreciation Society. Did any of you know about this group?

The founder of the society, Gavin Pretor-Pinney ran a magazine called The Idlers. He describes it like this:

The Idler was devoted to the “literature for loafers.” It argued against busyness and careerism and for the ineffable value of aimlessness, of letting the imagination quietly coast.

But eventually even his magazine dedicated to doing nothing became taxing. He decided to quit that work and become an idler himself, to live without a strategy and see what emerges.

Ghost Ranch, photo by Kathryn Van Aernum

And so he returned to Great Britain, a country full of clouds, and began his practice. Mooallem continues:

Clouds. It was a bizarre preoccupation, perhaps even a frivolous one, but he didn’t resist it. He went with it, as he often does, despite not having a specific goal or even a general direction in mind; he likes to see where things go.

This place of not resisting, of having a focus without a specific goal– this is the sweet spot and the razor's edge for a maker, for creating. It takes a lot of pausing for me to get there. Imagination and intuition are faculties that need cultivating, like developing muscles or dance steps. It reminds me of the pleasure of taking a day to notice one thing– sounds, clouds, birds, the critters in our pond.

Folly Beach at Sunrise, photo by Kathryn Van Aernum

Last night I went to sleep under the New Mexico sky, with the crescent moon leaning back over the horizon, and woke up to the wind whistling through the sage.