Finding Shapes in the Clouds - It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Squirrel with a Top Hat!
The cloud to the far left is definitely the lamp of a magic genie. The middle cloud could be a Triceratops, or an open oyster, or a Venus flytrap with a serious appetite. The cloud on the far right has two little frog legs, helping it to swim along the sky.
I’ve always loved laying in my backyard on a warm afternoon, watching the clouds go by and imagining what shapes they’re trying to form. Looking at each floating puffball and letting my mind's eye roam, seeing what associations I can create – it’s a great way to relax and let loose.
Searching for objects and animals in random shapes may seem a little childlike or like a daydream, but it really is a great way to relieve stress. I first learned this trick back in the tenth grade (wow, that seems like forever ago) when I was in an advanced level chemistry class. Ninety straight minutes studying the periodic table of elements, mols and C8H10N4O, etc., etc., is a lot for a group of teenagers to soak in.
Some days were especially intense. Our eyes would droop, our hands would ache, and our brains would get all fuzzy. On afternoons like this, my chemistry teacher would pause in the middle of her lecture, crumple up a paper towel, and drop it on the projector. We would then spend the next five minutes yelling out every shape we could imagine from the blob on the screen. The entire class would end up laughing hysterically over the shadow of a squirrel with a top hat or a spaceship with a broken wing. A projector, a room full of fellow fifteen-year-olds, and my eccentric chemistry teacher aren’t so accessible to me anymore, but the sky is always a window or a doorway away. Sometimes just kicking back and letting my imagination run wild is a great way to boost my mood. I’m always surprised by the connections my mind creates and the objects it sees in silhouettes in the sky.
If, like me, you’re often stuck inside, but you want to use your imagination with a few more clouds, webshots.com has dozens of photos to spark your creativity.
First, check out the clouds in this photo. 
What shapes do you see? Let me know in the comments.
-Lisa
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Comments
Sus Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The cloud formation is an opera singer and the note he/she is singing right now is an ominous golden note.
Michael McCullough Saturday, August 21, 2010
Like Lisa, I have always enjoyed the images that can be formed in the clouds. The April post on my blog, has some of my own cloud pic and I see an angel sitting on a cloud left center. In the cloud by Lisa, I see a puppy laying out in the cold with his warm breath forming a cloud in front of him, at top right. Thanks Mike