Do you find epic robot battles and the flight of enormous dragons relaxing? What if they’re depicted in billowy cotton softness?
If you haven’t guessed by now, yes, I’m talking about cloud watching, an activity I love but haven’t been doing as much lately as I once did. Sitting and watching nature’s live sculptors shift between various fanciful forms, allowing my mind to imagine whatever scenes and stories it will from them, is some great fertilizer for the imagination that fuels my writing.
Why haven’t I been doing it as much? I suppose I’ve let the distractions of modern life keep me from this particular joy. There’s always a new book or show to experience, an email that needs responded to, or social media posts to schedule for the sake of my writer platform.
Today, though, I’ve rediscovered this lovely activity, while on a walk with Andy. We reached the far end of our regular circuit in the park and I just said, “Hey bud. Let’s go sit under a tree for a while.”
Andy quickly got bored and started playing with pinecones but I stretched out on the grass and just started daydreaming with the clouds as my canvas. I noticed some positive things right away, and it struck me as we walked home that the activity felt a lot like meditation (which I practice on occasion, but not regularly). When I got home I looked it up and, sure enough, cloud meditation is actually considered a form of the practice by many people out there.
I can already feel positive things happening from that quarter hour of cloud watching. To that end, as an assist for my fellow writers, I’ve decided to give a quick lesson on how to go about it (on the off chance you need instruction in this) and how I can see you benefiting from it.
Cloud Meditation in 4 Steps
1. Find Some Clouds
Generally speaking this would involve going outside, although there’s nothing that says you can’t do it through a window if the weather is bad or it’s unreasonably hot or cold. Having some clouds and the ability to look at them unimpeded is the main thing here.
2. Find a Relaxed Position
My favorite position to cloud watch in is lying down in some grass with my hands behind my head. But if you’re new to relaxing and not ready for such an advanced technique, any pose in which you feel comfortable and can sit in for a long stretch of time will do just fine.
3. Pick a Cloud and Watch It
Step three is usually the most complicated in any how-to list, and this one is no exception. Picking a cloud is no easy task because all of them are so cool. How exactly is one supposed to settle on just one of these shifting beauties? It’s a monumental hurdle but one I have confidence you can overcome.
4. Let Your Mind Wander
All kidding aside, this step can actually be quite difficult to get right, because you can’t let your mind wander straight back to the things that stress you out. You have to let the cloud dictate where your mind goes. It’s an invigorating method of acheiving focus by giving up control and letting nature decide where your thoughts are going to roam. I find it helpful to focus on the ever-shifiting movement of the cloud, and make a point of noticing how it morphs and changes. That makes it easier to let the shape and motion suggest things to your imagination that you can then run with.
And that’s it! Repeat the above steps as needed until you’re done!
Pretty simple, right? And yet, like so many simple things, powerful as well. Here are some ways cloud meditation can benefit you creatively (from my own experience and internet research):
- Relaxation and calmness. This is a pretty obvious one, and tends to be a benefit of all forms of meditation once you’re able to do them and sink into a meditative state. The physical and mental side effects of this benefit alone might make cloud meditation worth trying, but wait! There’s more!
- Breaking mental logjams. The state you experience as the clouds shift and your thoughts shift with them is remarkably similar to flowing when you write. For this reason, when you’re stuck, it can be a very useful exercise for getting you unstuck. The meditative state gives your mind something else to focus on and let’s the story rest. While that’s happening, your brain is getting primed for flow and into a peak mental state for solving challenges in a story.
- Improving concentration. None of us are immune to the myriad influences that work to shorten the modern attention span, even writers. The demands of modern marketing and platform building alone can make it more difficult to focus on one’s writing for an extended period. The concentration you exert during a cloud meditation session can help build up those concentration muscles and make it easier for you stay focused when you’re trying to get a lot done.
Lately, in the midst of producing my second book no less, I’ve found myself having a hard time producing. Not in a “Winds of Winter” sense, you’ll be happy to know, but in a “the book may be out later in the year than I first thought” sense. I’ve been doing some thoughtful reading and inner dialoguing to try and determine what the problem is. I won’t go into the gritty details, but suffice to say that I’m figuring it out and getting things back on track, and today’s cloud meditation has proved an immeasurably helpful step in the right direction.
Fellow creatives, have you ever found yourself benefiting from a simple thing like this in your work? Tell us about it in the comments.
