Taking the Sky Road Home

Only in September and October do sunsets like this come along, ground mist creeping through fields and around trees, light and sky and clouds like something out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. The clouds look like a trail one could walk along, and they remind me of the title I appended to another photo a few years ago, "Taking the Sky Road Home". My word, this almost looks like a painting.

Fog and ground mist are fine, spooky things and common at twilight in autumn, clouds of condensed moisture generated by the earth's slow breathing and drifting along, just above the surface. Humans are cloud-breathing dragons - we generate our own mists and fogs as we take air into our lungs and expel it again; trees breathe in and out too. As above so below, humans, sky, trees and the earth all breathing in and out together. We are one with the clouds drifting along above our heads and the nebulous stuff floating along below us. I find the notion pleasing, and I also like the idea of being a dragon, cloud-breathing or otherwise. 

We call visible murky stuff "fog" when it reduces visibility to less than 1,000 metres, "mist" when we can see further than 1,000 meters through it. There is a farm building in the distance, so this is mist rather than fog, and a right fine mist it is.

I might be anywhere in the world, but I am leaning against a fence in the eastern Ontario highlands on a cool night in September with the collar of my old corduroy jacket turned up against the wind. Beau and I watch as another day fades, and I take photo after photo, hoping one or two will turn out. The clouds, the setting sun, and the gauzy veils of condensation floating just above the field are too exquisite for words, so why on earth am I trying to describe them? 

The sun slides below the horizon, another autumn day folds up like an umbrella, and the stars come out. There is a moon up there somewhere, but she is waning and won't be visible until midnight. If we are awake, we will go outside and greet her.