The Cloud of Unknowing

Giving up trying to understand and predicting the future

On this important day, it is gray. It is moist and a cloud has surrounded me in my glass tree house where I am sitting.

The old mystics spoke of a “cloud of unknowing” (Read an article on the Cloud of Unknowing here)  and I am in one today. I don’t know much and I can’t see. I don't know what in this world is going to happen.

My invitation must be then, to live in this cloud of unknowing and sit in the Presence as they, the old mystics, did. 

We know from reading the Old and New Testaments, that clouds where always symbols that something is about to happen; something is about to be spoken; some sense of the grayness is about to get cleared up. But, not right now; not today and from the looks of it, not this week. It's going to be a while before the sun comes out--at least that is what the weather is reporting. Interesting, isn't it?

So, we are all just the latest to sit in a cloud and to lay aside all our notions of knowing any outcome and making an predictions other than this: Today it is cloudy, gray and wet. It's going to be this way for a while.

Something must be up. Something is going to unfold that we just can’t see today.

Writing this poem, "The Cloud of Unknowing" was penned early this morning, on Election Day in the United States in 2024. But it's more than about unknowing the outcome of a political election. It is about laying down my efforts to need to know the outcome and to accept the Presence.  What we learn from the famous book, "The Cloud of Unknowing" by the never named author, that the Cloud is enough. In fact, the Cloud of Unknowing is more than enough.  By the way, the book, The Cloud of Unknowing is one of the most read printed books of all times. If you're considering giving up certainty, then I highly recommend this book. 

It's rainy here. Cloudy here. I can barely make out the Beech Tree that is 25 feet away from me here in my office. I can't see a thing. I can't see a Thing. All there is, is Presence.

With you in whatever happens,
Steve

Photo by Daniel Ramírez on Unsplash