My search for the elusive green spark, and discovering patience in my personal life.

I am a scientist, and, as a scientist, I sometimes feel privy to the secrets of Nature, namely, physical explanations for observable—and unobservable—phenomena. I learned long ago, however, that experiential learning beats notional learning. But I also learned that Nature reveals itself only to those who are ever observant yet never demanding. I have seen a white halo around the moon (a lunar halo) and a rainbow around the cloud shadow of my plane (a glory). I have seen a cloudy sky on fire at sunset. I have seen marshmallow like clouds repeating their simple texture for what seemed like miles (mammatus clouds). I have seen purple militant clouds surround the last piece of blue sky like water circling the drain. I watched as a storm rolled into the city like waves crashing on shore, the insects sensing the impending rain long before I felt the first drop. I have seen a partial rainbow halo around the morning sun (a sundog), and I have seen cloud iridescence (“rainbow clouds”). Reflection, refraction, fluid mechanics and all manner of physics surrounds us, and I enjoy knowing these things about the universe. But sometimes I like to just stop and wonder at the beauty manifested by them. ?

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In writing this, I am reminded of an anecdote the eminent physicist [and Nobel prize winner, witness to the first nuclear bomb explosion] Richard Feynman gave on a BBC television show in 1981: Feynman described an encounter he had with an artist friend, during which the artist taunted Feynman with the claim that he, the artist, could better appreciate the beauty of the flower because he, the artist, doesn’t take it apart and in the process make it dull. Feynman’s retort was that the beauty we see is there for all, and there is additional beauty in knowing about the cells that constitute the flower, the evolution of specific colors, etc. In other words, considering the parts in a scientific and reductionist sort of way only adds to one’s perception of beauty. Readers of Richard Dawkins will undoubtedly notice the similarities, except that I find Richard Dawkins overbearing and wholly unqualified if his main motive is to convert the “antagonists” at the opposing end of the science-theology spectrum. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best when he wrote, “I yielded myself to the perfect whole.” Emerson also said the following:

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“It is a striking feature in our condition that we so hardly arrive at truth. There are very few things of which we can wisely be certain tho’ we often let unfounded prejudices grow into bigoted faith.”

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I have never liked the debate between the white lab coat-clad, objective scientist and the red-robed, subjective-yet-intuitive clergyman. Man is a beast of many natures, and I think this debate is nothing more than an internal ego struggle physically manifested. Having been raised Catholic (this included Catholic school and church twice a week) and subsequently deserting that upbringing in an adolescent show of defiance, I long ago turned against organized religion and, instead, set out on my own path of self-discovery. But we never really leave our past behind, so I carry around two inner voices—rational thought and faith. Through my adventures, I think I’ve come to understand Walt Whitman better when he wrote, “I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least….”

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As Thomas Merton said,

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“Contemplation is the highest expression of man’s intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder.”

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What I take from Merton’s writing is that we must experience life; we must exist in the moment but not exert our will onto that moment. And when we do we will find that reason and faith create a sort of wholeness in us. I remember some time ago there was a video of a guy—a really happy guy—who recorded his response to seeing a double rainbow. He was amazed to the point, I believe, of crying. As it happens, I am often reminded of this guy because, having lived in Brisbane Australia, I often saw double and triple rainbows during the wet season. Now, I didn’t cry, but I did marvel—every time—at the beauty revealed to me during those walks over the bridge out of campus. Despite the dichotomy of my inner voices—one simply amazed that Nature could be so beautiful, the other equally amazed by the physics of refraction—I walked on contented yet deeply considering the power of the sun to amaze.

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The sun, that refulgent orb pulled along—so the Greeks of antiquity thought—by Helios, provides us warmth and energy. The sun: a fusion reactor that produces energies across the electromagnetic spectrum—nature’s far more elegant opposite to our maladroit fission reactor. Within that electromagnetic spectrum are what we call the visible wavelengths, that is to say the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet (you can use a prism to separate these colors, for instance, from what otherwise looks like white light.). Those wavelengths represent energies: red being on the low end. And those energies are carried by photons. So, whizzing through space are these photons with different energies, which eventually find their way to Earth and its atmosphere.

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When this light reaches Earth’s atmosphere something interesting happens—the light is scattered when it interacts with the molecules in the atmosphere (Nitrogen, Oxygen, etc.). This scattering isn’t equal for each color, though; the higher frequency end of the spectrum (e.g., blue) is scattered more than the lower frequency end (e.g., red), which is dispersion. You see this phenomenon every day when you look at the blue sky. You also see it when the sun is very near the horizon—the light travels through a much larger volume of air and so the lower frequencies are also scattered. In this case the horizon looks red. And when atmospheric conditions and your timing are just right an even more interesting thing happens, as Jules Verne tells us:

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“[D]id you notice the phenomenon which occurs at the very instant the heavenly body sends forth its last ray, which…is of unparalleled purity? [T]he first time you have the opportunity…it will not be…a crimson ray which falls upon the…eye, it will be…a most wonderful green…. If there be green in Paradise, it cannot but be of this shade, which most surely is the true green of Hope!”

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I have been on the beach at 4 a.m. to see the sun rise over the Pacific on Australia’s east coast, relaxed in the sand to watch the night creep over the Caribbean, spent many evenings on the balcony outside my apartment in Okinawa looking out across the East China Sea and the Pacific. For more than a decade I have traveled the world for just a glimpse of this green spark. But it wasn’t until I lived in Boston that my search ended.

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One day, in April, many years after I started this journey, while holding my one-year-old son in my arms I finally say the green spark. The whole family was sick with a cold and a stomach flu the weekend before. I awoke feeling much better but with a sore and empty stomach. My son was taking his time waking up, which is why I had the opportunity to watch the sun rise while holding him. I hadn’t expected to see the green spark, mainly because I spent the previous two summers waking up early every morning and looking out over Boston Logan airport. Waiting, but never seeing. I was so surprised this time that I yelled with glee—yes, glee!—and I frightened my son and angered my wife (she thought something was wrong). It’s a funny thing waiting for something for so many years then finally getting it—the climax never quite lives up to the hype. But I was happy for the day. Patience pays, and so does holding one’s child in your arms while watching the sun rise. This reminds me of something N. Scott Momaday wrote:

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??????????? “Something of our relationship to the earth is determined by the particular place we stand at a given time. If you stand still long enough to observe carefully the things around you, you will find beauty, and you will know wonder.”

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I continue to be patient in the knowledge that, as Whitman said, “[C]oursing on… / amid the changing schools, theologies… / the round earth’s silent vital laws…continue.” And so I explore, visit and wait. One day, once my journey has led me around the world again and back, Nature will find me present and open for the next phenomenon.