Cloud Kingdom

I flew recently. One of the things I love about flying is being able to look down onto the earth and see everything from a unique perspective. I also love clouds and being up in the clouds, it feels like a sacred landscape. On my flight home I traveled in the evening and chased the sun west. There were tremendous storms all around and below and it made for an incredible landscape of clouds with the setting sunlight.

These aren't my images of what I saw that day but I was completely touched and in awe of this wilderness of clouds. It appeared to me as a landscape of cloud canyons, mesas and mountains. With depth and relief, valleys and summits, it appeared endless and all encompassing, no earth below. This was/is a vast wilderness that was untouchable by me, by humans. I was able to visit and view it by flying in an airplane but otherwise it was completely empty of human activity and it was heartening to know that, to realize something so vast and complex was empty and still and off limits to human feet and hands. We can visit briefly but we cannot stay. I imagined myself being able to climb up and down all over these clouds that seemed so solid and substantial, this vast wild place, deeply quiet and untouched. A sacred kingdom of it's very own.