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mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sEKYNTm9Yk..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sEKYNTm9Yk..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jGRL5JAcZ-..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">So enough about staring at the ground while walking; maybe it’s time to look at the sky.</span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">  </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I’ve always liked skies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I remember being at college and a group of us had been to a lecture on landscape poetry and at least two of us said, “Nah, I don’t really get landscape, but I get <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">clouds</i>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>And I’ve always taken a picture or two of interesting clouds while I’m out walking – I suppose many people do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Like this one:</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jGRL5JAcZ-..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jGRL5JAcZ-..." width="434" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And so I’ve been reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cloudspotter’s Guide</i> by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, begetter of The Cloud Appreciation Society.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ntOihzEc7-..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ntOihzEc7-..." width="420" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It’s one of those books that’s such a brilliant idea you wonder why somebody else (as in me) didn’t think of it before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I’m thinking I’ll write about it at greater length at some point, but for now suffice to say that if nothing else it makes you look at the sky in a new way.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Now, I have been known to complain about the skies of Los Angeles, that they’re too tame and featureless and samey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Although of course the more you look the more you see, and lately it seems to me that they’ve been a lot less samey, which of course says more about me than it does about them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">So I was out walking in the Nicholson acres a few days ago and I saw a strange circle in the sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I knew it wasn’t a cloud, but I didn’t know what it was: a chem trail, an alien signal?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EhSPjwXkJa..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EhSPjwXkJa..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Well no, I soon realized it was a vapor trail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>And the plane filled in the circle so that it what looked like a smiley face, or at least an O with eyes and a mouth, though of course it was upside down from where I was standing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2n-X0wsXFr..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2n-X0wsXFr..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">But the plane hadn’t finished. Next came a letter B, which I thought might be some reference some reference to President Obama.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TUUZRfp0B3..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TUUZRfp0B3..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">But then a D appeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>OBD – there aren’t many words start that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">   </span>Obdurate was the only one that sprang to mind, though that seemed an odd thing to write in the sky.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1_QVNYzNfi..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1_QVNYzNfi..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Anywa,y to cut a long story short, after that there was an A, and then a Y. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it still took a moment or two to realize what OBDAY meant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>But I eventually worked out that yes, the O was indeed a smiley face, or more precisely a happy face, and B was for birth. So it was saying Happy Birthday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I suppose you’d have to be impressed if somebody employed a skywriter to celebrate your birthday, but OBDAY still seems a slightly banal thing to write in the sky, or anywhere else.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o8O3zj21Zi..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o8O3zj21Zi..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">So I started thinking, what would be a less banal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Well you see I think words are not the way to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>One word or even two or three are never going to be very profound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Love, Peace, Walk Tall, Kilroy was here – it’s just not quite good enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>So I think I’d go for a symbol, an actual glyph, maybe something from the alchemy – perhaps this symbol for Transformation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cxuINuKKds..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cxuINuKKds..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">That’d be a nice challenge for a sky writer, and would certainly be an amazing thing to see in the sky while you were out walking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And as a coda, there was quite a bit of wind high up in the sky on the day the pilot wrote OBDAY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The letters started to drift and smudge as soon as they’d been done, and after the message was written, and after the wind had done it’s work you were left with a configuration that I think would have perplexed even the keenest cloudspotter.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5bULwtnzK..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5bULwtnzK..." width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheHol..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>