Phases – The Leeward and Windward Side

Everything existing on the planet earth has something for the human to learn. I have always believed that – the more you read, learn, travel, or perceive, the wider your reflections and notions are. Being an Earth Science(Geology) student, the surroundings around me have always fascinated me and therefore I always find a way to correlate it with human personality or often find a way to read that obscure message hidden from human intellect consciousness.

From the title – The leeward and windward side, I believe most of you might be confused. Not a regular but a weird and abrupt topic to choose and correlate. But if you have been a Geography student in your college or might be in High School you must have read something about it in your Social Studies subject which of course includes other subjects like History, Political Science, etc. Then you might be familiar with these words and their significance.

No worry. My post will well explain to you the two terms and with whom and how I am correlating them with. Excited!! so the detail goes from here on.

Mountain – Leeward and Windward Side

Though an older concept for all those students who belong to the Geography stream but my theory presents it in a new way (hahahaha).

As the phrase goes – There are two sides of the same coin – Head and Tail. So everything existing in this nature irrespective of whether it is living or non-living has two phases. It depends which side is more nurtured. Here my point of reference will be Mountains, yes those elevated structures, because I believe the human development process in some way is connected to the mountain building process (will tell in my further articles).

The colossal mountain ranges acting as a barrier to the wind blow consist of two sides- The leeward and the windward. When warm air ( which has a higher moisture holding capacity) makes its way from a valley towards a mountain terrain, it is forced to rise along the slope (this is referred to as orographic lift). In this process of travelling uphill, it cools (adiabatic cooling as no exchange of heat takes place) due to a decrease in atmospheric pressure. This lead to air being condensed forming cloud and eventually precipitation and rain. Due to the abundance of rain and water – the windward side is full of vegetation and greenery.

Now when the same wind descends from the other side of the mountain i.e it is travelling downhill from the mountain summit, it is completely devoid of moisture and is dry and warm (such dry winds are called Katabatic wind). Due to scarcity of rainfall, it remains devoid of lush green forest or vegetation and is often referred to as RAIN SHADOW AREA.

Human’s Correlation to Mountains

Now the question is how this is correlated to the human race. How can an animate existence be compared to an inanimate entity? What foolish and abrupt connection? Well, my sense says they are connected. We humans too are just like tall mountains. We too have a leeward and windward side in our personality. But in humans, the windward side represents a negative connotation. When a wave of jealousy, hatred, vengeance, anger, and other such evil thoughts flow across us we nurture those ideas into full-fledged green vegetation that grows on and on with time and become more dense and profuse. Nourishment is being provided by the surrounding we live in. The leeward side which is depleted from all such vicious thoughts remains as a wasteland or fallow land where seeds of love, contentment, trust, faith and hope are hard to implement. They get suppressed by the rocks and debris of the malicious wind that travel downhill because, by the time this wind reaches the other side, it is so much overloaded by evil 😈 thoughts temperature and pressure that there is no room for good things to overtake and survive.

Where in mountains the two sides maintain a vital balance by allowing vegetation to thrive in one part and preventing the ground from frosting or being over green in other parts thus acting as a good pasture ground for cattle and cultivation ( grapevine), in humans case an imbalance is created. The windward side gets uplifted higher and higher while the leeward side gets depressed more and more.

Conclusion

We cannot deny the fact that the human race has both sides good and evil. No one is born purely a saint or completely a devil. It depends on which side we prefer to choose and which side we desire to hide. We all have different past and stories and this complex history tend to deflect us into GOOD and BAD or rather the windward or leeward side of human elevation. The two sides have their significance because excess of everything deters us from understanding the worth of anything. It’s important to have GOOD and BAD because without BAD, GOOD cannot have its worth and without GOOD, BAD will make things vulnerable and horrible. But it depends on the human race which part they want to play in the rest of their lives.