Francis Bacon - April 19th, Iyengar II & I

From Gigantic Cinema - A Weather Anthology, edited by Alice Oswald and Paul Keegan. Trying to reframe my relationship to wind as mysterious, which otherwise, is getting a little old. And dusty!

52.

To men the winds are as wings. For by them men are borne and fly, not indeed through the air but over the sea; a vast gate of commerce is opened, and the whole world is rendered accessible. To the earth, which is the seat and habitation of men, they serve for brooms, sweeping and cleansing both it and the air itself. Yet they damage the character of the sea, which would otherwise be calm and harmless; and in other respects they are productive of mischief. Without any human agency they cause strong and violent motion; whence they are as hired servants to drive ships and turn mills, and may, if human industry fail not, be employed for many other purposes. The nature of the winds is generally ranked among the things mysterious and concealed; and no wonder, when the power and nature of the air, which the winds attend and serve (as represented by the poets in the relation ofAeolus to Juno), is entirely unknown. They are not primary creatures, nor among the works of the sue days; as neither are the other meteors actually; but produced according to the order of creation.