Serious Cirrus

The clouds today in this high-altitude sanctuary seem to defy the definition of the word “cloud.” They are painted in wide swaths of vapor, barely condensing before re-forming into a wide variety of brush strokes. Serious cirrus, I call them. They morph into myriad ghostly striations like scratches on a sky canvas. I can’t help gazing at this display of water droplets conspiring to thwart expectation. With all this looking up, I have to watch my step lest I do a faceplant.

This is the way the sky appears today on the edge of a caldera called Crater Lake. Every time I visit this area, I am called to leave behind ideas left over from previous visits. In this place, earth and sky, form and emptiness, seem to strike a different agreement, challenging convention (as if nature is ever conventional). Perhaps this is why indigenous peoples call this truncated peak a sacred mountain. Even the peak collapsed into itself to create the lake.

I recall a phrase from one of my practices. It refers to the “exhaustion of delusion”, where the conditioned mind collapses into itself. I swear, Giiwas (a sacred place), the indigenous name for this lake, is a shape-shifter on purpose—just to mess with us mortals. Spiritual vision arises in places like this; nature’s ploy calling us to go beyond what we think we know. I return here repeatedly because what I do know is that I know nothing. It is comforting to wander in an environment that confirms this realization.