The metaphor of clouds
Cloud-watching, the formation of ideas, cloudmind and the wind, the mist of crowds
[Image above, the Palouse, Tim Girvin cloud watching — photographed by Dawn A. Clark]
Coming from a farming family, I’m a skywatcher. Also, as a sailor, I watch the movement of the winds on the water. I study the clouds, how they’re building, what kind, what size. I have books on clouds and their names, cloud structural maps and types — ever watchful.
And clouds have symbolic and metaphorical values, in
our line of thinking.
Cumularity.
The cumular mind might be one of “clumping” [the etymology of the word for cloud, cumulus] — grouping and organizing ideas and paths of thinking.
The principle is simple — think of clouds as big, rolling, landscape traversing, changing and affecting each other; they are wind-shifting, heavy with the “rain of ideas” — working with crowds, clusters of people is a kind of cloud seed planting metaphor.
Watching, listening, knowing the channeling of the right movement, at the right moment takes time and expertise.
I was studying a fire in Australia
where one observer noted a spiraling whorl of air, smoke — then crossing into the range fire itself:
A fire tornado.
As dust devil, turned truly devilish —
a fire tornado, raging range fire?
There are many forms of metaphor and inspiration.
I gravitate to clouds, mists, and storms.
Rivers too.
tim | G I R V I N S T U D I O S | s e a t t l e
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Girvin Cloudmind | http://bit.ly/eToSYp
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