Late August Clouds

I suppose there are any number of things I could prattle on about this last August day but I choose what has chosen me; clouds.

I must confess that it is difficult for me to even sit here for these few moments to compose this brief piece as the sky is calling to me in whispers of azure and cyan with brilliant, slow moving grey-white clouds like pearly everlasting drifting on the cliff edge breeze.

I am planning on driving east today to Monticello where my parents spend the summer on their shore frontage of my grandparents old farm. I will drop our son off to spend the weekend birding with my parents and my uncle and visiting with other relatives keen to savour the long weekend's offerings.

We will likely scope out blackberries to pick and take a stroll on the sandstone beach below the cape before the girls, and my husband and I return home this evening.

But in order to do any of this, if I am to drive an hour east, I must first write out my strange intoxication with the sky on this last day of August. It feels as though it is calling me to honour the truths of my present by being in the present and witnessing how even the clouds upon the sky are ever changing. Breathe with me, breathe with this.

My dear sister Janice has returned to her family on the west coast after spending the bulk of the summer here with us. Bidding her farewell is always a difficult thing for me. Our relationship has often been a complicated one--we are sisters after all--but I have always adored her and she has always adored me. Being the two oldest with two children the same age we share similar life experiences even though we live a continent apart for most of the year. This summer our hearts crossed a lot of bridges to meet each other in a place of openness and acceptance. We witnessed firsthand the fabulous reality that we can become anew in each new moment so long as we grant each other that breathing, growing heart space.

Yesterday she spent most of her day flying across the sky, through clouds not unlike those which I am gazing upon today. I am gazing this morning as though bewitched by their splendour and I am reminded that we ourselves are like the clouds. Far too often we think of ourselves as fixed entities--I am Jill and you are You-- but really we are fluid like the ocean and the sky. We are waves of light and love, we are shape shifters in our mind's eye and co creators of the world in which we live. The beauty of the clouds is not unlike you. It is you.

Miss you already dear Janice but welcoming September into my heart one cloud moving breath at at time.

Thank you Janice! Thank you August. Thank you sky--for being You!

xoxo 
Intoxicated by clouds, but now ready to let them go...
Jill

Photo taken by Lucas MacCormack
Monticello, PEI 2017