Clouds provide us with a whole realm of images. Some you have to look at very closely and then convince yourself that you are seeing what you want to see, others jump right out at you leaving you with no doubt of what you are seeing. What makes it so much fun is that these formations change right before your eyes. In an instant they have shaped into something else!

I've been a cloud watcher since childhood when my mother and I would sit on the front porch, or lay on the lawn, and stare as far into the atmosphere as we could possibly see. Mom would point out various shapes of animals and people and things with the excitement of a child herself. It was from this earliest memory of cloud watching that I began to make a habit of searching the clouds.

Whether it's the high-level cirrus or the low-level stratocumulus, you can find a mirage of shapes and images. Clouds can be bright whites to rainy day grays, they can be thick and cottony, or wispy and willowy, and some even appear to billow up from the ground and lay across the horizon; and yes, some even have a silver lining.

Laying on my back in the grass I often would see flocks of birds pass between me and my clouds as well as a glint of an airplane, or an occasional hot-air balloon as it floated on its lonely voyage across the skies. There are so many things to be seen in the clouds; I've seen beloved pets, I've seen loved ones that have passed, I've seen trains, boats, elephants, mountain ranges, horses, and of course angels! Who hasn't seen an angel in the clouds, especially when there's a rainbow arched over the sky?

A few years back when I had a long commute to work I would try to seek out angels in the clouds at each stop I made; I didn't acknowledge any other shape, just angels. This ritual soon became monotonous because I was trying to see only angels instead of seeing what was really in the clouds, so I stopped my cloud watching.

Then one day without thinking about the clouds, all of a sudden I saw a HUGE cloud that was in the shape of a hand. It wasn't a bright and cheery cloud, it was soft looking and slightly gray in color. Now I know you're probably thinking that I had lost it; but it was the shape of a hand, and this cloud stayed over my car until I arrived at work, never changing its shape.

What did this mean? I have no idea. I only know that I was at peace with my commute from then on and I actively resumed my cloud watching

Learn more about this author, Janet Dunn.
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