06. Clouds – Lenormand Meanings and Combinations

6. Clouds – Meaning

Light: Confusion clearing up, the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Vagueness, doubt and uncertainty changing to clarity.

Dark: Vagueness, Doubt, Uncertainty, Confusion increasing

The cool thing about the Clouds card is that it has two sides, light and dark. Check your deck for which side is darker coloured and which side is lighter coloured. There is no standardisation between decks as to which side light or dark clouds needs to be on.   

(This is similar to the People cards, #28 and #29, in that they could be facing either direction – or even forward! – in each individual deck).

Rarely, a deck will have only Clouds, with no side lighter or darker. In this case, go by the guidebook of the deck for meanings and combinations. Or, combine the dark and light meanings below and choose which one fits best.

Both the Light and the Dark sides of the Clouds are associated with doubt, uncertainty and vagueness. But! This haze of confusion doesn’t stay like that, it either gets worse (*gulp*) or gets better (yay!) And that’s the difference, the clouds show the movement of our understanding and clarity descending into further chaos or clearing up and getting brighter! Clouds aren’t static, they move across the sky, the cards around it will give you a tempo, pace and reason.

Clouds (light) makes me happy to see; I know things are going to improve and become clearer – blue sky is appearing behind the clouds as more and more light returns. Clarity and an improved mood incoming! Clouds (dark) though… it’s being unable to trust ourselves and what’s going on around us because our mental clarity is so…bad!

Remember, Clouds (dark) doesn’t have to mean complete overwhelm in all areas of our life, the cards around it will give great insight into the root cause of the problem and the area it’s applicable to.

Imagine – you are standing INSIDE a cloud, fog billowing around you…that’s this card to a tee! Light Clouds: suddenly the fog shows more and more blue sky and light until it parts! And the sun shows itself in the sky. If you turned around, Dark Clouds would get thicker and thicker, pressing in on you until you don’t know which direction is which. Which way do you go? Confusion and overwhelm… Ahem, so, that’s why I like to talk about Dark Clouds first usually! Ending on such a darkly dramatic note is…a bit much! Hahaha.

In terms of which body part it represents, the lungs! The Clouds are up in the airy sky, so that makes sense 🙂 I have this to mean ‘breathing’ as well. So, for example, Light Clouds + Rider could be out of breath from running or exercise. Dark Clouds + Rider could mean asthma.

As an example, someone close to me was experiencing depression that was NOT moving out of their life. They got the Clouds (light to the left and dark to the right) and behind it on the right…the Anchor card! The Dark side of the clouds was anchored in to stay! What’s great about the Grand Tableau set up (the spread that uses the whole deck), is that I could then look to the House of the Sun (the Sun card is number 31, so I look at what card is sitting on top of position 31 The Sun), and also where the actual Sun card was in the spread (and what house it was sitting in), for advice for them as to how to bring back ‘the sun’ (happiness, confidence, clarity) by seeing what was influencing it. I love the Grand Tableau!

If you’ve got Dark Clouds in a 2 card draw, pick up the deck so the picture side is facing you. Keeping the cards in order, look through the deck until you find the Sun card. Pick out the card above it (closest to you) and the actual Sun card. Lay them in that order on the table, that is, the Sun card goes on the left, and the card that was above the Sun card goes to the right. Pairing the Sun card with whatever you found it with can show a way out of the Dark Clouds. There’s lots of different methods – this is a quick easy one I like.

Body Part: The lungs/respiratory system says Sylvie Steinbach. But for me it’s strongly associated with mental health and brain chemistry. In this way, I kind of swap the Tree and the Clouds compared to how Sylvie does it.

Timing and Pace: 6 days, weeks, months or years. The 6th month of the year (June). Pace can be mercurial, changeable, lol, but if you think about clouds, they cover ALL the paces! From the doldrums to cyclonic speeds! The clouds change constantly, so for pace and timing “the only constant is change”.

Associated Playing Card: King of Clubs

Astrology: Neptune (illusions) and Mercury (intellect). But Sylvie Steinbach also associas it with all air signs and in some cases Pisces and Libra (calling them “the double signs”)

Valence: Negative

Clouds Combinations