Red Sky at Morning

     When I looked out my windows at sunrise the other day, I saw red. It was the dark red of anger, spent blood, and demon eyes, and it spanned not just the atmosphere above the eastern horizon like every other sunrise I had ever seen, but the entire sky. Even more chilling, the same satanic color covered everything under the sky. Lightfall Hollow’s trees, creek, pond, and ground were painted in the same red as the firmament above.

     My first thought was that a wildfire must be raging nearby, and the hollow would soon be engulfed in flames. But try as I might, I could not get so much as a whiff of wood smoke.

     Bewildered and anxious, my imagination ran wild. Smelling the air once again, I thought I detected sulfur, and it crossed my mind that perhaps hell had erupted, spewing forth the devil and his minions. Evil turned loose, they were invading both heaven and Earth.

     I had been curled up in bed, lazily drowsy, listening to the soprano solo of a Carolina wren. According to ancient Irish mythology, the wren is a messenger from the spiritual realm who delivers messages, including warnings, answers, prophecies, and secrets, from immortals to us humans. Yet the wren is no angel. He is a cunning trickster who is said to have won his Celtic title, “King of the Birds” by cheating his feathered friends.

     The story goes like this. Long ago in the days of the Druids, the birds decided to have a contest to see who could fly the highest. The winner of the competition would be crowned king.

     The tiny wren, realizing he had no chance of winning solely through his own efforts, surreptitiously hitched a ride with the mighty eagle by hiding in the eagle’s feathers. Sure enough, the eagle flew the highest, but when he at last tired, the wren took to the air, leaving the eagle behind, and flying higher. Not exactly the actions of an angelic creature.

     I can only think the wren’s lust for power got the best of him. Which was quite human of him. For invariably, there are those among us with megalomaniacal obsessions and rapacious desires. Their needy, greedy nature goads them into forfeiting their virtue in exchange for the pursuit of sovereignty. When all they ever really needed was faith, hope, and love.

     But back to the wren. Perverse celestial being or not, it was certainly an angelic song the wren sang outside my bedroom window at sunrise the other morning as an electrical storm brewed and I lazed about half-asleep in my own otherworldly realm. I suppose the surreal state of mind I was experiencing is why I was prompted to personify some of the other nonhumans outside my window.

     My anthropomorphizing began with some fuzzy thinking about what a shame it was that the wren’s song was not being appreciated by anyone but me. Consequently, each time there was a flash of lightning from the developing storm, my dreamy brain envisioned a photographer immortalizing the wren’s performance. While thunderclaps applauded, and the hollow’s creek babbled praise for the sopranist. Who sang on like no one was listening, and it did not matter if no one was listening because fame had never been the Creator’s point.

     Which left me to ponder if over the thousands of years between the Druids’ heyday and today, wrens have progressed beyond selfish cunningness to humble wisdom. It was an encouraging thought. Because what is possible for a bird is surely possible for a human. I just hope we are a whole lot quicker at getting to the worthiest place to be.

     I might have stayed in bed like that, spellbound by the wren’s aria and the rhythmic accolades of his fans, until their blended composition lulled me back to sleep. But then the altos, tenors, and basses of a raindrop chorus joined in, and the recital became a concert. Not wanting to miss a single note, I propped myself up on one elbow so that I could reach and fully crank open my bedroom window.

     That is when I saw the red. It startled me. I jumped out of bed and ran to my cabin’s front windows where I saw the ghastly abomination had corrupted everything in sight. I next ran to the windows at the back of the cabin. The same repugnant shade was staining that view too. I wondered if all of Earth was trapped in the same apocalyptic aberration. I wondered if the world was ending.

     I might have then moved on from being anxious to being terrified. However, I was now wide awake and had my wits about me. Rational, I figured what I was seeing was surely not the result of a prison break from perdition, but much more probably a kind of wedding between light and land. I had just never witnessed the spectacle before, and because I am human, I had initially reacted to the unknown I encountered with some fear, loathing, and jumping to absurd conclusions. But now I was certain the mysterious anomaly I was watching was a normal, albeit rare, occurrence.

     I was right too. The little research I later did proved what I had seen was primarily a natural phenomenon of Earth and sky, brought on by a number of factors, only one of which is related to diabolical forces let loose and the world’s demise.

     What is first needed for a panoramic sunrise is a large quantity of atmospheric water vapor, dust particles, or pollution particles. A substantial combination of two or all three of these works as well.

     An approaching thunderstorm can provide an abundance of water vapor to the atmosphere by doing what approaching thunderstorms do. They squeeze moisture out of the air and force it up higher.

     While the wind gusts that often proceed a thunderstorm can add more dust particles by picking up dry, loose soil. Although the fact of the matter is, I do not recall any wind that dawn. Nor was the ground dry, and here in the woodland that is my home, apart from the hollow’s dirt and gravel road, there is plenty of vegetation to hold onto the precious dirt. Be that as it may, all of Earth’s air contains dust particles, not only from the soil, but from other natural sources, like pollen, mold spores, bacteria, etc.

     As for human-made air pollution, the Allegheny region certainly has more than its fair share. Something that is bound to get worse if the diabolical forces of industrial tycoons get their uncontrolled, imprudent way. Let loose, these robber barons have it within their power to steal from the world until there is nothing left and it dies.

     I subsequently feel fortunate that, at least for the time being, the rural Alleghenian county where I live generally experiences good to moderate air quality. Nonetheless, anthropogenic pollution particles, like natural dust particles, are present in the air of even the world’s most pristine locations, and Lightfall Hollow is no exception.

     What the water vapor, dust, and pollution particles do is create a dense atmosphere. Which intensifies the scattering of the wavelengths in the color spectrum (aka the light spectrum or visible spectrum). Scattering is the atmospheric diversion of wavelengths. It redirects the wavelengths from the straight path of the sunlight to spread out in multiple directions. While all colors in the spectrum are subject to scattering, shorter wavelengths are more easily scattered than longer wavelengths.

     In the daytime, when the sun is at relatively high altitudes, there is just enough scattering to allow blue, the shortest wavelength in the color spectrum, to permeate the atmosphere. Even on days when there is a heavy cloud cover blocking the sun, above the clouds, the sky is blue.

     Conversely, at sunrise and sunset, the sun is low in the sky. Meaning it must travel a longer path through the atmosphere. This elongated route of sunlight near the horizon increases scattering. Blue light is mostly scattered away, fading to a hazy, bluish-white hue in the part of the sky further away from the sun. Whereas longer wavelengths can pass through the atmosphere with less scattering. Red, as the longest wavelength in the color spectrum, has the best chance of making it through to appear in a sunrise. Or, for that matter, a sunset.

     While the sun’s longer path through the atmosphere at the start and end of day is the fundamental cause of wavelength scattering, an atmosphere made dense by the presence of large quantities of water vapor, dust, and/or pollution particles intensifies the scattering even more, thereby boosting the chances of a predominantly red sunrise or sunset.

     Yet extreme amounts of water vapor or particles in the atmosphere can dull the most vibrant red and probably explains why the red that gave me such a start was a deep burgundy, rather than a bright scarlet. 

     Clouds are additionally crucial, not just for red, but for any intensely colorful rising or setting of Earth’s star. High and mid-altitude clouds catch and strengthen the colors that have passed through the vapor and particles. The clouds then act like a projection screen, reflecting the light downward and illuminating the sky.

     But when there is an approaching thunderstorm, there are typically low-hanging clouds. Although such clouds most often block the sun’s rays and prevent their colorful display, if the sun is low enough to shine underneath the clouds, the light is projected up from the sun onto the clouds’ undersides. And if the atmosphere is so dense that red, however darkened, is the only color that made it through, it is cast by the clouds. Which can create a sweeping, otherworldly scene of Earth and sky.

     In other words, mystery solved. Solved and solved with science.

     However, there was another mystery that occurred shortly thereafter. As the thunderstorm arrived and the rain began to heavily fall, the dark red was stripped away, revealing a pearly silver. It was as if a hellish veil had been lifted to show a heavenly face.

     This mystery I decided not to try to solve. Although I am certain there is a scientific explanation for it as well, sometimes it is better to let a wonder be. Especially one that is extraordinary, awe-inspiring, and symbolically hopeful. As was this marvel. At least to my wondering eyes.

     Because it looked to me like that omnipresent pearly silver was both a consecration and a promise.

     And who’s to say? Maybe the wren outside my bedroom at dawn the other morning was not singing simply for the hell of it. It is easy for me to imagine he was a cunning trickster, keeping me lounging away in bed after it was time to get up and cheating me out of an early bird start to the day. More challenging to envision is that the wren was also a divine messenger, delivering a warning, answer, prophecy, and secret all wrapped up in one sublime heaven and Earth.

     Hard to believe, but the wonder of it is, I do. That is my all-in-one faith, hope, and love, and I am sticking to it.