Rising or lifted air: Meteorologists look for the invisible stuff daily. Everyone experiences the consequences of it: Weather maker. Heated air rises as long as it is relatively lighter than the ambient air through which it climbs. Hand-over-hand on a gondola suspended from a hot air balloon. Go up. Still warmer than the air at the new level? Then rise more. Keep rising until the temperature of the ambient air and the rising air reach equilibrium. Once a pocket of air becomes colder than the ambient air, it is destined to sink, to make the plunge back toward Earth, but it does so as a different character, now a cooler body of air. And then, surprisingly, as the air descends, it heats by compression under the increased pressure nearer the surface. Rising air is also a consequence of what lies below: The shape or composition of Earth’s surface, and definitely the infrared energy radiated. Air over the warm, moist Gulf Stream in the Atlantic takes both heat energy and moisture aloft. Air over summertime Nevada rises dryly. And then there’s the influence of topography, of the shape of Earth’s surface.
Air can’t move a mountain except bit by bit, mineral grain by mineral grain pushed by winds. No, air that approaches a mountain range, called an orographic barrier, has to rise to pass over the rocky blockade. Orographic lifting: The model for getting by things that stand in our way. Run into an obstacle? Rise above it.
Of course, in rising, character undergoes change. Rising air will cool with decreasing pressure at increasing altitudes. Cooling changes the ability of the air to hold its moisture. That’s why you see a puffball cloud on a clear day. Some air rises and loses its ability to hold moisture as a vapor that through condensation on microscopic dust in the atmosphere changes to liquid, the little drops that in the billions make a cloud. And so, on the windward side of mountain barriers, rising air also forms clouds that on the lee side dissipate during the descent and subsequent warming. Think of lee sides as blow driers. Warming increases the potential for evaporation on air that lost much of its moisture to the rains and snows on the windward side of the orographic barrier.
So, too, all of us, in rising to pass over the obstacles in our life, must leave something behind, must change character. We might have to bang into a mountain, but we’re not stuck there. Rising is an alternative, even if it means changing our character by leaving something, some mark, on the windward side. Stand in our way? We’ll pelt you with what we carry, some rain. We’ll cover you in snow. Then lightened, we pass over and on the lee side, pick up a new energy. And behind us? The barrier itself has been changed, and not just temporarily. Rains and snows-turned-to-glaciers erode; they lower the barrier’s elevation for future masses of air. Every barrier suffers decay, just as barriers you must cross have been worn by those passing before you.
Every obstacle changes us, but getting past one provides the opportunity to discover something new about ourselves. Carrying too much moisture at the base on the windward side? It’s gone on the other side. Look back where you left the tears you lost in the climb. The obstacle bears the mark of your passing while you, forever changed, move over a new landscape. Character change is inevitable, but becoming something different while being recognized as that which passed over a barrier is the nature of Self. We can look back at what we left behind, but we always have a changing landscape to cross. At times, we will adopt the character of the landscape, becoming, like air, hotter or colder, wetter or drier. At times, we will shed both heat and moisture, maybe at times we will even pick up briefly some choking dust. But because we are always in the process, we always have some new character.
Barriers lift us.
Air can’t move a mountain except bit by bit, mineral grain by mineral grain pushed by winds. No, air that approaches a mountain range, called an orographic barrier, has to rise to pass over the rocky blockade. Orographic lifting: The model for getting by things that stand in our way. Run into an obstacle? Rise above it.
Of course, in rising, character undergoes change. Rising air will cool with decreasing pressure at increasing altitudes. Cooling changes the ability of the air to hold its moisture. That’s why you see a puffball cloud on a clear day. Some air rises and loses its ability to hold moisture as a vapor that through condensation on microscopic dust in the atmosphere changes to liquid, the little drops that in the billions make a cloud. And so, on the windward side of mountain barriers, rising air also forms clouds that on the lee side dissipate during the descent and subsequent warming. Think of lee sides as blow driers. Warming increases the potential for evaporation on air that lost much of its moisture to the rains and snows on the windward side of the orographic barrier.
So, too, all of us, in rising to pass over the obstacles in our life, must leave something behind, must change character. We might have to bang into a mountain, but we’re not stuck there. Rising is an alternative, even if it means changing our character by leaving something, some mark, on the windward side. Stand in our way? We’ll pelt you with what we carry, some rain. We’ll cover you in snow. Then lightened, we pass over and on the lee side, pick up a new energy. And behind us? The barrier itself has been changed, and not just temporarily. Rains and snows-turned-to-glaciers erode; they lower the barrier’s elevation for future masses of air. Every barrier suffers decay, just as barriers you must cross have been worn by those passing before you.
Every obstacle changes us, but getting past one provides the opportunity to discover something new about ourselves. Carrying too much moisture at the base on the windward side? It’s gone on the other side. Look back where you left the tears you lost in the climb. The obstacle bears the mark of your passing while you, forever changed, move over a new landscape. Character change is inevitable, but becoming something different while being recognized as that which passed over a barrier is the nature of Self. We can look back at what we left behind, but we always have a changing landscape to cross. At times, we will adopt the character of the landscape, becoming, like air, hotter or colder, wetter or drier. At times, we will shed both heat and moisture, maybe at times we will even pick up briefly some choking dust. But because we are always in the process, we always have some new character.
Barriers lift us.
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