The Remnants of Bela, 34th Day of Spring, 526 M.E. (Electra): We're in the in-between season here in Atlanta. In between heating and air conditioning. It's warm enough to not need the heat, but cool enough not to crank up the AC. Warm enough to peel the comforter and heavy blanket off the bed, too cool to sleep under just a sheet.

Without the heat or AC running, the air in the house in still and calm. When I light a stick of incense during meditation, the smoke trails straight up toward the ceiling in a solid gray column. No dispersion, no chaotic eddies of curling smoke. A single straight column, like smoke from a campfire in the deep forest in a Maxfield Parrish painting. It's a beautiful sight, although looking at it after meditating, the calm mind is more inclined than usual to find beauty in the mundane and simple. 

As I slowly walk around the room between sitting periods, my motion disturbs the air and the smoke sinuously bends and snakes. I can even see it respond as I slowly approach and the mass of my body bulldozes the air in front of me. When I'm very close, the smoke is as chaotic and eddified as when the heat or AC is running. I don't see the column as I walk away as it's now behind me, but when I turn a corner, I notice it's returning to the straight gray column of before.

There's no metaphor here, no lesson to be learned. It is what it is. The weather's pleasantly mild, smoke rises, your humble narrator observes and finds joy in the simple physics. 

The end.