THE SHAPE OF WIND – Currents of Life and Wonder

The other day, as I was driving to my new studio, I stopped at an intersection I've traversed a hundred times. As I waited for the light to turn I noticed—as is my compulsion—something I'd never seen in the same way before.

     I noticed…the way the fluid undulations of 
     foliage lent shape and sequence to the wind.

There were the same trees, the same shrubs and tall grasses that were there last week and last year. No strangers to me their forms and textures. I'd watched them unfurl and wither, get trimmed back now and then by whoever cares about such things, and faithfully adorn each season in its accustomed colors.

But what I noticed most that day was their motion, the way the fluid undulations of foliage animated each plant’s existence and at the same time lent shape and sequence to the wind.

PHOTO: Russ Seidel

Wind is one of those wonders of Nature you don't have to directly see, hear, smell or even feel to know it's there. You can be locked inside the best insulated of buildings and, with just a glance out the window, you still know when it’s there. Like a river's invisible current swaying a half-submerged branch, breeze can reveal itself merely by what it does to other things.

Perhaps the river analogy is good one, for that rolling motion of green, the way the flowing air alternately pushed and plucked at those living forms, made it look like the whole thicket could have been underwater.

         Like the wind, your presence here is 
         invisible unless you do something.

ELUSIVE PRESENCE
Do you feel, as I do, that we can see ourselves in Nature? In the wind’s tousling of foliage, would you be the wind or the foliage?

How do you sense small wonders you can’t really see? Couldn’t we apply this notion of indirect sensing to ourselves and our relationships—perhaps better knowing our own qualities by the effects they have on others?

And speaking of elusive presence, I try very hard to put up content here on One Man’s Wonder that will interest and inspire you, encourage you to see the world afresh. Yet only something like one percent of you ever leave any trace of your presence here.

C’mon folks, let me know my musings are having the desired effect (or not). Leave a comment. Share this on Facebook or Twitter. Let other anonymous readers know you're all part of a sizable movement to reclaim awareness, curiosity and wonder in this sped-up, dumbed-down, us-versus-them world.

Remember, like the wind, your presence here is invisible unless you do something. Let us feel your wind!