Leonardo's Cloud & the Shrine of Venus

 

A massive storm cloud touching down over the Sandia's, Albuquerque - June 10, 2025, 6:19 pm, DS.

(Note: While the memory of this cloud immediately came to my mind after reading Da Vinci's passage it is in no way representative of Leonardo's cloud.) (For more about my cloud see "The Cloud Matrix" at the end of the post.)

"Landscape with cloud effect

I have long had the opportunity of observing many different [atmospheric effects], and once, above Milan, over in the direction of Lake Maggiore, I saw a cloud shaped like a huge mountain made up of banks of fire, because the rays of the sun which was then setting red on the horizon had dyed it with their colour. This great cloud drew to itself all the little clouds which were round about it. And the great cloud remained stationary and retained the light of the sun on its apex for an hour and a half after sunset, so enormous was its size. And about two hours after night had fallen there arose a stupendous and phenomenal wind storm."

- Leonardo da Vinci via Leonardo da Vinci's Note-Books Arranged And Rendered Into English by Edward Mccurdy, 1923. (Book 2, Nature, p. 125).

Inset left is a chalk drawing by Leonardo - A Storm Over an Alpine Valley, 1480. A facsimile of this drawing accompanies the artist's text in Mccurdy's translation. There appears to be a few versions of this odd image on the web, mostly in red chalk. For example, this one was dated circa 1509.

I don't think that this drawing represents the mountain-shaped cloud Leonardo describes in his notebook. The cloud in the drawing seems to have the anvil-shape of a certain variety of cumulonimbus: the incus.

Admittedly, the drawing is difficult to make out. But, if you click on the image, you might find what is possibly the image of the artist with his beard and hat on the upper left side of the cloud - portrait, inset left - Leonardo's cameo appearance in the clouds!

(Correction. Actually, this bit of cloud looks most like him from a distance and not at all like any sort of face close up.)

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The Temple of Venus featured in one of a series of illustrations by Walter Crane for Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene, 1590.

"For the Shrine of Venus

You should make steps on four sides by which to ascend to a plateau formed by nature on the summit of a rock; and let this rock be hollowed out, and supported with pillars in front, and pierced beneath by a great portico, wherein water should be falling into various basins of granite and

porphyry and serpentine, within recesses shaped like a half-circle ; and let the water in these be continually flowing over; and facing this portico towards the north, let there be a lake with a small island in the centre, and on this have a thick and shady wood. Let the waters at the top of the pillars be poured down into vases standing at their bases, and from these let there be flowing tiny rivulets."

-  This passage from Leonardo's notebooks appears several pages later in Nature; The Earth an Organism - on page 131. It is then followed by The Realm of Venus. (Both are discussed below the jump.)(Photo source.)

(Continued below the jump...)

The Cloud Agenda

 

Cloud formations over the Sandia's, Albuquerque - July 6, 2025, 12:52 pm - DS

"I’ve always loved looking at clouds. Nothing in nature rivals their variety and drama; nothing matches their sublime, ephemeral beauty. If a glorious sunset of Altocumulus clouds were to spread across the heavens only once in a Generation, it would surely be amongst the principal legends of our time."

- A quote from Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s The Cloudspotter’s Guide, mention of which is found in two Marginalian articles worthy of a view. See here and here. (Note: This section was removed from the previous cloud post, and inserted here.)

Gavin Pretor-Pinney just happens to be the founder of the international Cloud Appreciation  Society... which even has it's own manifesto and an outstanding collection of cloud photographs!

Also, Pretor-Pinney has a talk over at TED; see Cloudy with a Chance of Joy. While there, also see another illuminating discussion: Can clouds buy us more time to solve climate change?

***

No, the photo above - with a cloud that suspiciously resembles a lion or an Egyptian sphinx (bull? dog?) - is not a book cover for the latest new age conspiracy theory paperback... nor is the title of this post. The Cloud Agenda is not a hidden agenda. The agenda is mine and there are no sinister aspects involved. I am simply recording clouds because they and I seem to be sharing the same location in space and time these days and I feel we ought to know each a little better. The clouds seem to agree, and I'm learning some amazing things I'd like to share.

Today's cloud - and, yes, each photo below represents the sequential transformation of the same single cloud - was a real surprise for me. I never saw a large cloud transform in place before. Generally, the smaller ones slowly float out of the camera's range and the larger ones dissipate. This one clearly wanted to be captured.

Below is its first incarnation. 

1st appearance - July 6, 2025, 12:27 pm - DS.

Clouds frequently form animal shapes and this is always delightful. What intrigues me though are the stranger configurations like the one above. I'm not going to even venture a guess on what this odd scene might represent. That it seems to represent something, however, is a peculiar quality clouds possess and one I suspect humans recognized the minute they crawled out their caves: clouds form interesting shapes; some of which seem eerily familiar.

1st transformation - July 6, 2025, 12:52 pm - DS.

Often, finding recognizable shapes in what is assumed to be a random pattern is referred to as pareidolia, a (sometimes derogatory) term often used by unimaginative skeptics. Wiki informs us, however:

"Pareidolia plays a significant role in creative cognition, enabling artists and viewers to perceive novel forms and meanings in ambiguous stimuli. Joanne Lee highlights that this phenomenon has been harnessed in artistic practices for centuries (Da Vinci for example)."

So, there.

Anyway, the transformation above is the most recognizable one of the group (to me) and it kind of blew me away. But, imagine my surprise when I realized that the "show" was not, yet, over...

(More below the jump.)

A Face in the Crowd

 

"A girl looks on among Afghan women lining up to receive relief assistance, during the holy month of Ramadan
in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, June 11, 2017." Photo credit: Parwiz/REUTERS (found here).

ICC issues arrest warrants for Taliban leaders over persecution of women and girls

"THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants Tuesday for the Taliban’s supreme leader and the head of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court on charges of persecuting women and girls since seizing power nearly four years ago.

The warrants also accuse the leaders of persecuting “other persons nonconforming with the Taliban’s policy on gender, gender identity or expression; and on political grounds against persons perceived as ‘allies of girls and women.’”

***

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of colour remains chained. Nor is any one of you.”

- Poet Audre Lorde via Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.

I think we've all been waiting a long time to hear news like this, but I suspect the women living in Afghan (and other countries in which women are denied full autonomy)  have been waiting far longer... and with an urgency most of us have experienced to a lesser degree. One should keep in mind that all things are relative and this gap is always in danger of closing... and, I don't think there is one woman or feminine person who is not in some way aware of it. It is embedded in the feminine morphic field (along with many other fears). 

But, if there has been any good news this year, this is surely it! Take heart; some good may come of it... keeping in mind that the wheels of justice seem to turn very slowly these days.

Also see: Afghan women face near total social, economic and political exclusion.

Artful Resistance: How Afghan Women are Wielding Art Against the Taliban

Send in the Clouds (Updated - July 19)

 

Cloud formation over the Sandia Mountains - cellphone photo - June 30, 2025, DS.
(Note that the bird - left of center - appears to be a raptor.)

"I'm glad to be with you, Sam Gamgee, here at the end of all things."

- Frodo Baggins speaking to his closest companion, Sam, on Mount Doom while Mordor is consumed in flames, via this scene (also here) from The Return of the King, Peter Jackson's cinematic retelling of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic trilogy. 

The saga of Middle Earth from The Lord of the Rings was the first thing that came to my mind at the beginning of this year, when someone had apparently sent in a swarm of menacing clowns to replace the government here in the States.

In Tolkien's tale, the Great Eagles, led by the wizard Gandalf, saved the day for Frodo and Sam.

But, who will save the day for those of us in the West, who are currently suffering under the escalating Republican Reign of Terror?

Monstrous cloud over the Sandia Mountains - cellphone photo - July 27, 2025, DS.

I'm thinking... clouds. 

But, no, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about the little fluffy clouds drifting by on a sunny day. I'm talking about the massive, icy thunderheads that spell doom for an unwary pilot.

(More below the jump...)