There is a time over here, when the sun is low in a clear sky behind one and one is driving towards very dark cloud, when everything just looks so damned beautiful that it brings me close to tears. Or it would if I wasn't driving.
Is it that odd gloomy-but-glowy-at-the-same-time effect? 'Cause I love that!
Even if I'm not picturing exactly the right thing, I understand the 'beauty overload' emotional response. And it definitely hits me more often in dramatic lighting.
When I was a child, my mother frequently complained that I had "no appreciation for natural beauty" because a) I spent so much time with my nose in a book and b) I wanted to know the science behind what I was seeing. She was pretty far off the mark: a sunset over the Shenandoah valley, seen from Skyline Drive, can make me stop breathing for a while, I've felt the tingle over all my skin looking at dark clouds and sunrise/sunset changing the look of a landscape, and understanding enough meteorology and optics to explain rainbows (and sundogs) makes me smile even more looking at them, not less.
Wandering farther a-tangent ... I recall one time when I was standing on a rock outcropping near one of the scenic overlooks on skyline drive, perched over a drop to the valley below, and felt moved to improvise a bit on the electric guitar and battery-powered amp I was carrying. When I stopped and turned around, a mother and child were behind me. As he hid behind her legs, she said, "He liked your music." I said, "Sometimes I pray with words; sometimes I pray with music. I had to give a prayer of thanks."
Here's the bit relevant here: thinking about that episode in the context of your comment, it occurs to me that sometimes one 'prays' (for a vague, but I think useful in context definition of 'pray') merely by looking and taking the time to See. By allowing beauty in creation to wake up those corners of one's psyche. By taking time to appreciate, on a gut-and-tear-ducts level, beauty in this world.
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'Cause I love that!
Even if I'm not picturing exactly the right thing, I understand the 'beauty overload' emotional response. And it definitely hits me more often in dramatic lighting.
When I was a child, my mother frequently complained that I had "no appreciation for natural beauty" because a) I spent so much time with my nose in a book and b) I wanted to know the science behind what I was seeing. She was pretty far off the mark: a sunset over the Shenandoah valley, seen from Skyline Drive, can make me stop breathing for a while, I've felt the tingle over all my skin looking at dark clouds and sunrise/sunset changing the look of a landscape, and understanding enough meteorology and optics to explain rainbows (and sundogs) makes me smile even more looking at them, not less.
Wandering farther a-tangent ... I recall one time when I was standing on a rock outcropping near one of the scenic overlooks on skyline drive, perched over a drop to the valley below, and felt moved to improvise a bit on the electric guitar and battery-powered amp I was carrying. When I stopped and turned around, a mother and child were behind me. As he hid behind her legs, she said, "He liked your music." I said, "Sometimes I pray with words; sometimes I pray with music. I had to give a prayer of thanks."
Here's the bit relevant here: thinking about that episode in the context of your comment, it occurs to me that sometimes one 'prays' (for a vague, but I think useful in context definition of 'pray') merely by looking and taking the time to See. By allowing beauty in creation to wake up those corners of one's psyche. By taking time to appreciate, on a gut-and-tear-ducts level, beauty in this world.