GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CLOUD DIVINATION
- Familiarize yourself with the different varieties of clouds. The NOAA’s webpage, https://scijinks.gov./clouds is a good, basic introduction to the varieties of clouds. For those who want to go into further detail and finer distinctions between the different types of clouds, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cloud_types is a good resource, though for my taste, it gets almost painfully-scientific about the subject. Or you can go to a search engine and simply type in the search bar, ’most common types of clouds.’ That’ll net you a whole raft of webpages on the subject.
- Being a sky phenomenon, clouds are up there with the Spirits/Elementals of Air, so if you would like to cloud-divine, it’s a good idea to establish a relationship with them. Talk to the Spirits of Air, tell them you want to receive divinatory messages from the clouds and ask for their help in this. If you’ve got a lot of air in your natal chart, this might be easier for you to master than it would be for others. If you don’t have much of any cooperative air aspects in your chart, maybe accompany the request with a sacrificial offering. I’m not talking human sacrifice here, just anything yummy you’d rather have yourself. Or anything the wind can pick up and blow away, like grain or corn grits.
- It’s also possible that the Dead could be communicating via cloud, clouds being so malleable and easy to shape, so be open to that possibility too, and invite your deceased relatives to send you messages via cloud. The benefit of this is, they could send you a cloud shaped like a private joke between the two of you, something you know could only have come from a certain person, thus giving you a way of verifying your cloud divining results. This could end up being one of the easiest, most-convenient and most-touching ways of continuing contact with the deceased.
- Some types of clouds lend themselves better to cloud divination better than others, but ultimately, any type of cloud has the potential to convey a message. The key thing to keep in mind is, what is your gut-reaction on seeing certain clouds? Does a though, idea, or concept come to mind when you look at it? If so, then it’s likely there’s a message in it for you.
- Cloud divination answers are symbolic and highly subjective. The accuracy of the answer is dependent on you and how well you can intuitively suss-out an answer. It’s not like many other forms of divination, where you ask a question and get a clear and unmistakeable answer. Cloud divination is a practice more-suited to the creative sort of person who can see decipherable images in anything, from dried, flaking paint to dirt to crumbs on the kitchen table.
- Certain types of clouds are more likely to appear at certain times of the year. For example, you’re most-likely to encounter the awesome cumulonimbus clouds in summer, because that’s when the weather allows for their creation. You’re most-likely to encounter cirrus and cirrostratus clouds in winter, because the weather then is more conducive to their formation. You may find there’s a certain type of cloud you have the most success with in cloud-divining, but it only tends to appear at a certain time of the year, making your cloud-divining seasonal at best.
- There are two approaches to the active practice of cloud divination. In approach number one, you tell your Usual Suspects your question or issue, then ask them to send you a sign via clouds sometime within the next 24 to 36 hours. This gives them time to set up a response, but you’ll also have to be attentive to the sky, lest your answer go drifting by unnoticed. You may get an answer in a matter of a few minutes! They may send you an answer through more than one type of cloud, so you’ll have to keep an attentive eye on the sky for a while.
- The second approach is the same way you’d practice bird divination or animal divination. You sit in one spot, do an opening invocation asking your Usual Suspects to weigh in on the matter of (fill in the blank), then tell them you’ll sit here for X-amount of time, waiting for their answer. This approach works best with the cooperative cumulus clouds. A completely clear sky, devoid of clouds, will likely not comply.
- If you ask a question then the next day you get either a completely clear sky or the all-over, undistinguished, personality-less, cloud-cover sky like cirrostratus, nimbostratus or stratus clouds, then this isn’t a question the Spirits of the Air are prepared to answer right now. Either that, or the answer to your question is a clear ‘No.’ You may have to address your question to a different divination tool.