Philosophy Lifts Fog

  Yes, it's true. Click here to read a wonderful story about how this phenomenon works. The story comes from a blog posting on "Psychology Today," written by my cousin, Marietta McCarty, author of Little Big Minds: Sharing Philosophy with Children and How Philosophy Can Save Your Life: Ten Ideas That Matter Most.
  While I am partial to fog and clouds in the troposphere, my cousin is partial to clarity and blue skies in the philososphere. Clarity certainly worked its magic in her story, the way the fog worked its magic on the landscape pictured here.

Cloud of the Week #3: Cirrus Intortus

Cirrus intortus with some cumulus trying to get in the picture.

 We are still in the upper layer of the troposphere, roughly five to eight miles above the earth, where the cirrus clouds are formed. This variety of cirrus is known as cirrus intortus.

   If you know even the tiniest bit of Latin, you will guess that "intortus" is related to tortuous, torture, contort and is from the Latin tort, meaning twisted. These are cirrus whose fallstreaks of ice crystals have been twisted by the winds of different speeds and directions as they fall. The particular pattern of the twist is also influenced by the varying temperatures and humidities the ice crystals encounter on their way down.

  If your Latin fails you when you are cloudwatching and you see thin, wispy clouds that look like tangled hair, you're looking at cirrus intortus.



Cirrus intortus with a few jet contrails in the mix.

  Don't imagine that the presence of these clouds means "twisters" on the ground. Cirrus respond to very high winds in the atmosphere that do not correspond to ground-level winds. What I love about cirrus is that they are the winds made visible. The winds are likely blowing around on blue-sky days, too, but we can't see or feel them.

  Though it would make my job of reading the clouds simpler, the skies seldom feature just one variety or species of cloud at a time. In the photo below, you can (I hope) spot the cirrus intortus clouds and some other clouds that look thicker, milkier and something that looks like a rainbow. What you are seeing is another type of cloud--cirrostratus (ice crystals in a thick layer) and a halo. Like a rainbow, the halo is produced when the sun strikes the water in the sky a certain way. Sunlight striking water droplets just so creates rainbows; sunlight that strikes ice crystals just so produces a halo.  The halo can appear as a complete or broken ring.

Cirrus intortus, cirrostratus, and a 22-degree halo. And a silhouetted roof.

  There are a few kinds of halos--22-degree halos, 46-degree halos, circumzenithal arcs (CZA for short), and sundogs. Halos are often associated with cirrostratus clouds, but also form in cirrus, in the wispy tops of cumulonimbus, and in the fallstreaks of cirrocumulus clouds. I'll write more about these in upcoming postings.

   Now, we have learned three types of cirrus so far this year. See if you can name the first two (below). Give yourself a pat on the back if can. Go back to my earlier blogs if you can't. Remember, it's okay to just call 'em "cirrus" or the "high, icy ones." Just keep looking up.





Iridium

  Last month I posted a blog about the Banff Mountain Film Festival and included links to the website of Australian photographer and filmmaker Murray Fredricks. I ordered a DVD of his film Salt, which was shown at this year's festival. I've watched it several times; I think about it all the time. Fredericks has created a film where the stars, light, time, space, being and nothingness converge in an almost hallucinatory atmosphere. This is a beautiful and haunting film.
   As is the "bonus" short film called Iridium (included on the DVD).  One of my alert cloud-loving blog fans in Bellingham was kind enough to send me the YouTube link to the film.  Click Here to watch it and take in the splendor of the skies.
 

Guilty!

Irate? This plate will likely get broken first.

 A person cannot live by clouds alone. To balance my diet of cirrus, cumulus, and stratus this past fall, I signed up for a pottery class. For many years I had wanted to get back to throwing pots on the wheel, but decided to try some hand building. Some twenty years ago, I visited artist Joan Gardiner at her studio in Virginia, not far from where I was living. She showed me a commissioned project she had just completed--a set of eight dessert plates, each representing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Each plate had the name of the sin and beautiful artwork to symbolize them. Her idea was that while "we were consuming the dessert, the sins were consuming us." I loved idea...and the fact that the eighth plate was Grace.
  I didn't need any dessert plates (especially ones that were relatively pricey), but I coveted them with all my heart.
  Last fall, I decided to try my hand and making a set. I could not recall what artwork Joan had painted or incised on her plates--and just as well as I would qualify as "Pre-K" in the free-hand drawing department. So I decided to use letter stamps to spell out the sins in English and Latin and to use glazes of different colors to match the spirit of the sin. The plates were my wedding present to one of my brothers and his new wife--who are good people, fabulous cooks, and Catholics who know how to enjoy their favorite sins.
  There are, FYI, a few classes of sins according to the Catholic church. There are venial sins (ones that do not forfeit a state of grace) and mortal sins (ones that do and require confession and absolution). It is 13th-century Italian theologian and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, we have to thank for the information on the deadly ones--considered deadly because of their great potential for causing other sins.
  So here they are---all but GLUTTONY. Unintentionally, I put too much glaze on that plate and when it came out of the kiln all the letters had filled in. They are what you might call "rustic," but nothing a good slice of bourbon-pecan pie or a slab of apple pie a la mode won't cover up.

This was supposed to be "passionate" purple and red with a voluptuous figure. Now it looks kind of like a tree trunk at dusk. Easy to resist this sin, unless you are a druid.

I wish we would evolve to the point where we can just be, and not have to be proud of it--whether it is gay, American, black, Union, honor student, Olympic athlete. Aquinas considered this the #1 of the 7 (P.S.: I am, I hate to admit, most proud of this plate--the triple glaze turned out better than I expected).

A seemingly harmless sin, but like the other Deadly six, one that supposedly leads to worse sins.

Envy--the green-eyed monster. This would look great with cheesecake.

 
 

This glaze was supposed to be metallic black and represent a "black hole" of endless wants and desires. The way I did the glaze here makes this sin kind of look like a virtue. Fun!

The plate for the virtuous--there is one in every crowd.