Gathering Clouds

Sometimes I lie in bed in the morning just as morning is breaking and I find myself chasing thoughts like clouds on the horizon.  I try to gather them in and hold on to them.  They often elude me.  They sometimes fade with the light of day.  Others are so random they do not take root.  They drift off never to be seen again.  Quickly, I try to lasso them, as if they were some sort of wild cattle needed to be brought in for branding.  They are mine, afterall, my thoughts and musings.  But alas, many get away and are forever lost to the nether regions of my mind...or are they?


Thoughts are a bit like the proverbial sheep.  They cluster together and yet the most appealing one will wander off, seeking its own way.  It will not follow the flock.  That particular thought has a mind of its own.  It will meander and explore in the mind field and find fodder for rumination that may or may not need cultivation.  Some thoughts like these are best left to their own devices.  Others are best taken in hand and nutured like a belove protégé.  Attention must be paid to each passing thought while not allowing the thoughts to control the thinker.  It is a delicate dance to be sure.


So if I have been diligent, I have carried a pen and paper or my laptop or even my cell phone with the ability send e-mails to myself, up the stairs the night before and I am able to write down the thoughts and musings that most appeal to me and keep them for later development or inspiration.  That is if I have been diligent and if I can transmit some coherent scribblings down that will keep the thought safe and warm from the predators of day's routine and humdrum.


The morning hours before arising are alive with lingering dreams of the night and imaginations of the coming day.  Life itself, it seems, consists of what is thought and what is incorporated into experience and production.  Knowing which to keep and which to let pass is a fine art.  It is an art one must learn to practice not only in the early hours of morning, but in the attempts to remain mindful of the here and the now.