Myra Peshlakai’s strange day began when she was only four. It happened on a breezy spring afternoon while she and her mother and 8-year-old sister were lying in the grass of a local park in Boulder, Colorado.
It was Sunday, the one day of the week Myra’s mother didn’t have to work at her job as a secretary for a local trucking company. As was common on her day off, Myra’s mother took the girls on a picnic, and after lunch laid out on a blanket for a little cloud gazing.
On this blustery day, the blue Boulder sky was filled with fat cumulous clouds constantly changing shape as they were pushed along by the stiff wind. It didn’t take long for everyone to make out images in the clouds. Myra’s sister said she saw a rabbit. Myra’s mother said she saw a house with a chimney.
Myra said she saw her grandmother.
“Where?” Myra’s older sister challenged.
Myra pointed out the location.
“That’s not grandmother,” her sister said. “That’s a – well, nothing.”
“No, it’s grandmother’s face,” Myra insisted.
The sisters argued back and forth. Finally Myra’s older sister turned to their mother to settle the disagreement. Their mother, however, had learned long ago to never take sides in this kind of thing. However, she was curious why Myra, the more introspective of her two children, would see the face of her grandmother. Of all the times they had looked at clouds, no one ever saw the face of someone they knew.
Years later, remembering this day, Myra recalled how her mother became sad as if a feeling of malaise seeped deep into her soul as the wind turned colder and the fluffy clouds were replaced by a slate gray sky.
As the family returned to their small apartment off Pearl Street, they heard their telephone ringing. Myra’s mother removed the house keys from her purse and rushed ahead to get the phone call.
The girls entered the apartment a few moments later – to find their mother in tears.
“I have some horrible news,” their mother said. “Grandma has left us.”
Myra, the younger daughter, understood what that meant immediately. The older sister took a moment. She then turned to Myra, and hissed, “You did it.”
Myra’s Cloud Friends
This is how Myra Peshlakai’s strange relationship with clouds began. Born in Flagstaff, Arizona, to a Navajo father and non-Navajo mother, Myra never lived in Navajo Nation. Her parents divorced before she could crawl. Her mother took the girls and moved to Boulder. Her father, a sometimes long-haul trucker, remained in Flagstaff where he dealt with his alcohol demons.
As Myra grew, she spent more and more time gazing at k’os, the Navajo word for clouds. She didn’t think of them in a scientific way. Clouds were here friends. She talked to them and listened to what they had to say. When she was sad, cloud formations cheered her up. When she was happy, she enjoyed sharing her happiness with the k’os, believing they felt her elation.
Myra also suspected she physically saw clouds differently than normal people. While everyone described clouds as white or dark, Myra saw them in colors of varying hues, mostly pastels of pink, purple, blue and even green a few times. She believed their colors foretold the kind of day she could expect – the lighter the color the better the day.
But it was the shapes of clouds that told Myra the most, and over the years she had many non-ordinary encounters with cloud formations. For example, one day she was returning to the hospital where she worked as a nursing assistant. It was late in the afternoon and the light had an orange cast to it. Squinting, Myra looked up in the sky and noticed an unusually dark pink cloud with a lighter cloud cutting through it. The lighter cloud was in the shape of a question mark.
Myra immediately thought of her mother, whose favorite color was pink. But because this was a dark pink, Myra was worried. The presence of a question mark was even more concerning.
She called her mother who told her she had just returned from a doctor’s appointment where she had a biopsy on a very small lump on one breast. Her mother laughed it off and said it was nothing. She felt great.
A year land a half later Myra’s mother died of breast cancer.
Not all of Myra’s cloud experiences foretold tragedy. She once clearly saw a dollar sign in the clouds and then learned the next day she would be receiving a considerable bonus for the excellent level of care she was giving patients at the hospital.
Another time Myra saw a poodle in the clouds. What intrigued Myra most was the detail. The poodle cloud had a distinct classic poodle cut. The head was in profile, a cartoonish Disney face with an expressive large eye and big grin.
A week later Myra found a small lost dog. It wasn’t a poodle but it did sort of resemble one without the fancy cut. After unsuccessfully trying to find its owner, Myra kept the dog and called her Cloud.
But the happiest cloud configuration was an actual “happy face.” The formation had two small clouds for eyes and a wispy cloud turned up in a smile. When Myra happened to glance at it, she also smiled and continued feeling happy throughout the day. Myra sensed something extraordinary was about to occur in her life.
She was correct.
Her older sister called at 10 p.m., sounding sad. In fact, Myra suspected she had been crying. A call from her sister was indeed rare. They had little communication with one another as adults. They had not gotten along as children and that spilled over into their later years.
Growing up, her sister referred to Myra as “that weirdo” and sometimes even called her a witch.
More often than not, this resulted in punishment from their mother who didn’t like that kind of talk, especially after hearing this sort of thing from her ex-husband who enjoyed tormenting her with stories about Navajo sorcerers called skinwalkers who could shape shift into animals to carry out their black magic.
Myra’s sister had called because she wanted things to be different between them. She wanted a reconciliation. She said since their mother had died she was lonely and felt bad that their relationship had been so strained.
“Things shouldn’t be like that between sisters,” she said.
Myra said little. She listened. In her heart, she believed her sister’s words to be true. But there was still something missing. Then, finally, her sister said it:
“But I’m mainly calling to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you. You deserved better, especially from your older sister.”
Her sister’s apology filled Myra with joy. She thought back to the happy face cloud. In her mind’s eye she imagined it winking.
The Magic of Clouds
The reading of clouds has a long and storied history. In non-technological cultures, the cloud shaman held a prestigious position as everything from curer to adviser. The reading of cloud shapes and cloud movements determined a cloud shaman’s predilections.
Navajo seers also used clouds as well as stars, sandpaintings and other objects to fixate on (while accompanied by chants) in order to evoke an alternate state of consciousness in which images spontaneously manifested in the seer’s mind followed by a diagnosis rendered by interpreting those images.
Non-indigenous people have also turned to clouds for answers.
Aeromancy, for example, is one of the oldest forms of divination, a method that combines the interpretation and reading of cloud formations, wind currents and cosmological events like comets. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that Gods were in charge of controlling the weather, and the clouds were symbolic signs that displayed the Gods’ emotions and feelings toward people.
A little like a Rorschach Inkblot Test, some feel that the shapes you see in a cloud can say a lot about yourself, including your fears, hopes and desires. Typical cloud symbol interpretations:
- Babies or Houses: Your subconscious is telling you that you’re ready to settle down.
- Angels or Cats: Can signify you’re getting more in touch with your spirituality.
- Deer or Moose: Your subconscious is telling you to be more aggressive.
- Buildings: Tiny structures mean you’re having a crisis of confidence; skyscrapers mean you’re feeling confident.
- Circles: An engagement or wedding is in the offing.
- Snakes or Crocodiles: Can indicate there’s possible danger ahead. These images can also point to deceitful behavior.
Then there’s scrying, a type of divination that does not use a standard set of symbols. Scrying speaks more to the creative mind and uses a seemingly fluid and adaptable medium that allows a variety of symbols and interpretation.
A cloud gazer, for instance, simply takes it to the next step. When you gaze into the clouds the winds change the shape of the fluffy white mist and suggest symbols to your mind. We see animals, ships and symbols. The next step is to allow those shapes to have meaning. The ultimate extension of this free-form symbolic divination is to project the screen of your mind into a medium to truly see visions to answer the questions posed to you.
Can Clouds Protect Us?
Myra is now in her 60s. Her mother and her sister have died. Myra lives alone. She never married but she did have a fiancé. She was engaged, briefly, to a man who was quiet like herself, but with a temper on occasion. Initially, Myra thought the temper was a normal personality quirk. But the occasional flare-ups became more of a regular occurrence, especially when Myra mentioned anything about a male patient or male doctor at the hospital.
Myra was walking alone in a nearby park after a particularly bad fight with her fiancé over a new intern that all the nurses found extremely handsome. Her fiancé asked Myra if she found him handsome. She hesitated, then answered honestly that yes, he was very good looking. That set off her fiancé.
During her walk through the park, a summer thunderstorm had formed, which perfectly reflected her mood. As always, Myra looked at the sky. She saw lightening in the distance followed by rumbling thunder. She knew it wasn’t safe to be walking leisurely outdoors during an approaching lightning storm, but for some reason she felt the need to linger.
A few moments later one dark cloud broke away from the massive buildup. It had a bluish hue and soon formed the shape of a human hand. This was particularly disturbing because dark blue was her fiancé’s favorite color, and she had feared he would strike her with his hand because he got so mad over the intern.
Myra waited for more. As the wind picked up, several spots of pinkish cloud began to trail the hand. Myra’s first thought was blood.
She returned to her fiancé’s apartment and told him it was over. With her ex-fiancé consumed in shock, Myra quickly left – never to see him or even hear from him again.
Myra was somewhat surprised that her ex-fiancé didn’t try to pursue her. But she felt both relieved and fortunate.
Another woman was not so fortunate. Around five years later, Myra heard through a co-worker at the hospital that there was a nurse’s assistant who constantly showed up at the hospital battered from beatings. Upon further investigation, Myra discovered that the woman with the bruises had married Myra’s ex-fiancé.
It wasn’t the last time the clouds saved Myra from tragedy. A few years ago Myra and a friend were hiking in one of Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks. As the friend lagged behind on the trail to relace her hiking shoes, Myra continued ahead on the trail to prevent breaking a sweat.
Myra wasn’t thinking of anything in particular other than how good she felt and how lucky she was to have a friend to hike with. It was one of those rare occasions when Myra was looking down rather than up. But suddenly, as if receiving an instant message in her brain, Myra felt compelled to raise her head.
At first she thought she was seeing sky writing, but then realized it was a cloud, the whitest one she had ever witnessed – and it was in the form of a perfect exclamation mark.
Myra stopped immediately. At the same time, a prairie rattlesnake lunged in front of her. Had she taken one more step, the snake would have surely sunk its venomous fangs into Myra’s exposed right leg.
Myra backed up and caught her breath as the rattler slithered away. When her friend arrived, Myra told her of the close call and how they should be careful and alert for the rest of the hike.
Myra did not tell her friend about the warning cloud. The next time she looked up, the cloud had vanished as if it had never been there in the first place.
In fact, it was a perfect blue sky, cloudless day in Boulder …
Excellent storytelling, Thomas. I really enjoy your website!