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?

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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.)

2nd transformation - July 26, 2025, 1:00 pm - DS.

And so we come to transformation 2 (above); a frilly confection - kind of like a float in a rose parade. Observant viewers will note the rough phi spirals.

3rd transformation - July 26, 2025, 1:13 pm - DS.

As for the remaining two photographs, well, I'll leave their identity to the powers of your imagination and/or pattern recognition.

4th transformation - July 26, 2025, 1:28 pm - DS.

Ultimately, while we may scientifically know what clouds are composed of, and can categorize their forms in a general way, we can't know how or why they form the myriad shapes they do...

Or, why one Sunday afternoon in New Mexico, a humongous cloud suddenly appeared on the horizon, and began dramatically transforming continuously for an hour into, at least, five visibly different configurations. (Note: I've just posted two close-up photos from the same sequence below.) 

Hence, my cloud agenda. While our official world teeters on the brink of disaster, throttling us with increasingly sordid tales of man's inhumanity to man, there is an incorruptible "higher ground" up there... in the clouds.

Time stamp: July 6, 1:16 pm - DS.

Time stamp: July 6, 1:24 pm - DS.