meadows and clouds in the mountains… hard to find a more definitive example of a love and hate twixt the inanimate… lending a mood or soaking one wet, protecting from the harsh afternoon sun or fogging out the trail ahead… one of those fickle balances where only the right amount does the trick, a little bit here or there and the beauty becomes a curse…

unlike the woods, clouds come very visibly over meadows… if one is ascending they bring a bit of reprieve from the heat in the beginning, those isolated wisps taking turns in toying with the sun… yet they play for a bit too long and trepidation starts creeping in… what usually starts as an innocent dance on mountaintops can ride upon the winds to suddenly precipitate upon the wayfarer with a mischievous alacrity…

sometimes there is this perfect cleaving of the landscape into two seemingly perfect halves of sun and shade, a yin and yang on display… no shadow sans light… a time when bad weather is still some distance away and there is this equilibrium, in sound as well as sight, the wind doesn’t howl but hums, the clouds don’t growl in unison but nonchalantly glide dispersedly… that is perhaps when meadows are at their most enjoyable…

no other landscape displays such adroitness in transforming itself over any scale of time, from gradual change in seasons to sudden turns of the weather… a massif will at best shed or gain some snow, forest canopies seldom lose their silhouette, glaciers may be forced to retreat in a defined linearity, but meadows, akin to clouds, remain in a constant state of flux… from bursting with colours to be draped uniformly in an expanse of snowy white… from a soft carpet of green to miles of knee-deep slush…

due to bareness in their vegetation, meadows seem even larger than they are… like deserts but not as unforgiving… an endless trudge that one knows can only be broken down one step at a time… but clouds beg to differ, matching this immensity inch for inch… a sustained spell of wind and the seemingly infinite of land can be engulfed by the larger infinite of dark skies within moments…

from wall canvasses to computer wallpapers, meadows occupy an important niche in environmental aesthetics as we derive an intuitive pleasure from their perception from afar… in their folds though, sometimes the going can be tough, as one struggles across thick, rock-strewn shrubbery or being hit by a hailstorm with nowhere to hide, but maybe as Kant would see it, the joy comes more from the perceived image, or pre-conceived notion, and despite whatever ill-tempered meadows one might encounter, the aftertaste is always one of beauty and serenity…

there is no end to metaphors one can derive from mountains, and meadows are no exception… the interplay between them and the clouds is an exercise in cherishing the moment, one can’t be too grateful for the present for it can change in a moment but there is no point in being too pessimistic either…

musings on clouds in meadows, treks across Western Himalaya…