sky matters

invisible fires
There is still smoke in the air and particles of ash too microscopic to see with the naked eye. Which may explain last night's incredibly  dramatic sunset. Taos is known for its sunsets, but this one was off the charts! According to a 1987 book called "Meditations at Sunset" by physicist James S. Trefil, a really good display requires enough clouds to reflect the red light of the sun but not enough to obscure it. He goes on to say that in Japan there is a special tea ceremony that is performed while watching the sunset. I wonder if they're doing that in Japan these days after the terrible disasters that have and still are occurring. The news about the nuclear plant is sparse and I shudder to think about what's really happening and how it's affecting our planet more each day.

Very early this windless morning, the sun rose as a brilliant sharp-edged orange disc. I went out on the deck in my PJs to take pictures, but that atmospheric thing happened and tricked the digital lens, scattering the color into an aura around the sun and darkening the sky. My eyes were seeing something else. Is everything around us more virtual than real? An in-the-eye-of-the-beholder phenomenon? That theory of consciousness affecting what we see by the very act of observing it? Electronic, human, animal - each seeing differently. Einstein believed that a definitive reality does exist for humans. But I'm not a scientist and could be talking through my hat (I heard that phrase in a 1930s movie last night) and electronic lenses don't really see, do they?

"...the color you see does not depend solely on the wavelength of the light that strikes your eye but on other things in the visual field and in the mind of the viewer. This third component is the psychological part of color perception."          James Trefil