The Heavens

7/8/07 – 7/14/07
by C. Zaitz

I have a collection of old astronomy books. Sometimes the author will refer to the sky as “the Heavens.” What a lovely way to think of the regions above our heads. It gives the sense of the vastness and beauty of the sky, but the term does tend to lump everything together. “The Heavens” is a more encompassing term than saying the singular “heaven” but it doesn’t truly capture the layered and complex nature of what lies above.

For example, during the day, the sky is all around us, and we rarely ever look at it, just as we rarely look at the ceiling in our house. But the sky is much more interesting, even on a bland day, than the ceiling. The sky has magnificent layers of intrigue, layers of depth and color. Blue skies aren’t just blue, and grey skies are even more colorful. My favorite, of course, is the black sky of night, when all the subtle, distant and concentrated light from the stars can penetrate the atmosphere and be seen here on earth.

But sometimes when you look up, you see what looks like “heaven” from what we’ve seen in paintings and drawings. We can see rays of light coming down from the frothy, fluffy gold-edged clouds with a bright sun lighting them from behind. It’s a beautiful scene, which is probably why it was chosen to represent heaven. Those rays have a technical name. They are called crepuscular rays, which certainly isn’t as poetic a term as “heavenly rays,” but describes the rays of light that seem to spread out from behind back lit clouds, especially at twilight. Crepuscular means, “twilight,” though the effect can happen anytime there are enough particles of dust or vapor in the air to scatter light well. The cause of these rays is a combination of light and shadow. The light is always there when the sun is out, but the shadow created by an object like a cloud that gives the light a “ray” appearance.

From our perspective, the parallel rays from the sun actually look like they diverge from behind the cloud, giving them that spread out “ray from heaven” look, as if a heavenly body shone a great golden flashlight to illuminate our little patch of earth. It’s the same trick of perspective that the brain plays to make parallel railroad tracks look like they converge at a distance.

There certainly are other beautiful effects of light and shadow, scattering and perspective to be seen in the sky, but I think crepuscular rays are some of the most evocative. Perhaps it’s because they do seem to be flooding the earth with golden light, almost like a curtain opening up onto earth’s stage, as directed by something bigger than ourselves. Next time you see them, you’ll know that they are caused by natural circumstances, but you can always let those pretty rays take your gaze up into the sky. I assure you there will always be something interesting to see in “the heavens.”

Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view.