Movement

The picture above is of a cloud formation called a chinook arch. Note the stunningly beautiful colours, which occur at sunrise and sunset. A chinook is a special wind experienced particularly in southern Alberta, but can be felt as far north as Fort St. John, and as far south as New Mexico. It's warm air coming in from the Pacific Ocean, dumping precipitation on the west side of mountain ranges, and resulting in warm dry air on the east side. A rapid change in temperature results, as much as 100 degrees difference (-50 to +50, recorded in the Black Hills of South Dakota), with winds gusting up to 106 mph. One of the reasons my brother loved Calgary was that they enjoy 30 days of chinook on average over the winter months. They know that unlike the east coast, they do not have to resign themselves to 6 to 8 months of cold weather. Sooner or later, there will be a chinook, melting snow and bringing a feeling of spring if only temporarily. I used to tease him, though, that on the other hand they can also experience a dump of snow pretty much any month of the year, including high summer. In other words, they live in an environment of constant change. In Alberta, the joke goes, if you don't like the weather, just wait a moment.

This is an extreme example of constant movement, involving the 3 elements of wind, earth, water.

Here's a wonderful quotation (from a tango website) I found recently with regard to movement:

Movement is life. Stillness is only a perception. Movement is everything, sound is movement, light is movement, love is movement. To move is leaving a state in order to seek another. It is believing that there is no end, following a path, forever. If we move, our horizon moves, reaching distances we could have never even imagined. In all of us, something always moves. Movement is the essence of being alive, the deep manifestation of living. Where there is movement, there is life.

Through meditation and contemplation, we create stillness, which in turn creates an opportunity for movement.

I am looking forward to Thomas Meyers' lecture tomorrow on meditation and the call of Michael.

Sparky