A cloudy sunrise

I am an early bird. I love getting up in the morning, preferably a couple of hours before everyone else. One of the best things I know is to watch the sun rise over the horizon. The beauty of nature is often most pronounced during sunrise and sunset. It is a symbol of a beginning and an end, in a cycle that repeats perpetually. Why is it so? I believe it has something to do with contrast. When the sun is close to the horizon, the contrast is maximized in many ways. It is the same bright sphere up in the sky during the day, but when the sun is close to the horizon, the shadows become longer, and the sky is painted in many colours. Everything around us is suddenly portrayed in a whole new way. Those things that used to hold no beauty at all, suddenly can become immensely beautiful for a moment, like a stone, a tree or even a virus outbreak.

A beautiful sunrise is a sure bet, no matter what the outdoor conditions may be like. The weather has been perfect the last week, with completely clear skies. In such conditions, the sunrise is often bright yellow, surrounded by the blue ocean and sky with an intermediate layer in between of orange and green. Surely a powerful sight to behold by any measure. But this week, I realized something important: The most beautiful sunrises tend to occur in cloudy weather. In cloudy skies, the sunrise often takes on a different palette, painting the clouds in red, burgundy, orange and purple colours. In a clear sky, there are no clouds to paint. Some of the most beautiful sunrise memories I have is from when there has been a small, small gap between the ocean and the thick layer of clouds. In those cases, even the contrast of time is intensified.

Astronomical motion is hard to detect, when looking at a starlit sky. It appears as if everything is standing still. But if you’ve ever gazed at our galaxy through a telescope, you will know that the stars are moving quite fast. That’s precisely what happens with the sunrise. It is over in a matter of minutes, and if we are talking about the cloudy sunrise, the time window might perhaps be measured in seconds, if you want to behold the scene when everything is “just right”. In no time at all, the sun passes the small gap where its rays are visible. And then the vivid colours are replaced by grayscale for the rest of the day. Compare the image I used in the title for this post, with the one below, that was taken just a little while later. This is how the weather looked like for the rest of the day. Even if the view is grey for 99% of the time, there will still be a small shimmer of hope during sunrise and sunset. It is a pity should we not be present when they occur.

We are currently going through a horrible pandemic. The virus has covered our world in darkness. The news has been almost completely replaced by a never-ending swipe of bad news binging. If we do nothing but binge bad news, we will start to believe that the whole world has become colorless and grey. But remember this: The darker it is, the more contrast a little light will bring. It is therefore critical that you limit your news consumption, otherwise you are sure to miss out on the beautiful sunrise, in whatever shape or form it will come to you. And even more important, you might miss your opportunity to provide a cloudy sunrise to someone else.