Glory in the Morning...

"There's a glory in the morning because the earth turns 'round and a promise in the evening when the sun goes down." -- Crazy Bird, around 1975

I've been puzzling for some while over something. In fact, it occurs to me almost every time I go for my morning walk around the neighborhood where I live in the Happy Little Kingdom here in the far north.

The play of the rising sun light in the clouds is often a most pleasant experience. Indeed, it is amazing the joy, awe and wonder a sunrise can bring.

Why is this?

I suppose many or even most aesthetic experiences are acquired tastes tinged by cultural bias. But I suspect that the pleasure of seeing the beautiful glory revealed in the sky is natural, universal, in fact arch typical.

My question is: why? Why are we, so to speak, "hardwired" to enjoy the sunrise?

I propose that it has to do with the spirituality innate in our common humanity. What I mean by spirituality is the feeling or grasping of meaning in this existence which at times can seem somewhat chaotic.

There is one effect, not rare yet not frequent either that strikes one as almost metaphysical in its effect. I am thinking of the situation where shafts of sunlight pierce the clouds in shafts of light and shadow, creating a sort of fan-like effect.

Until recently, these were the only straight lines one would ever see in the sky.

Today it is almost a daily experience, weather permitting, to see the condensation trails of high flying airplanes scratching their chalk marks across the blue.

I hardly know of any thing more ugly than the meaninglessness of their incongruity than these contrail graffiti defacing the sky.