Look Up at the Sky Day | By Katrina Santha Chelliah
On some days it can be grey and dark, filled with thunder and lightning that cracks up the sky and sends shivers down your spine. On other days it can be bright, blue and beautiful, filling every crevice of the Earth with light. During some evenings, it beams with colours of orange, pink, and red, putting the world to sleep with a beautiful painting. Have you ever noticed all of the many characters that can be seen when your eyes gaze up?
The sky seems to paint a different picture every hour, each one with personalities as contrasting as the other. Sometimes I wonder about the artist up there who never tires of painting, whose enthusiasm can be seen in every stroke, and whose exhilarating emotions are mirrored in the sky. Who is this seemingly tortured artist that makes pieces more unique than Van Gogh himself?
Photo by Trinity Wong.
The Beauty Above
Imagine if you were given the honour of that paintbrush. The honour of painting the sky every hour. Would you be able to recreate so much passion and personality every single hour of every single day? Even though I love writing, I surely would not be able to produce inspired pieces on a daily basis. I sometimes wonder how the artist above designed the sky. The way the sun rays come beaming and peeking through buildings and dark alleys like a new wash of paint, signifying the hopes of a new day. Or the way a rainbow somehow always appears just when you need it –like a familiar, full-faced grin from the sky that you can’t help but smile back at. And oh, the sunset! I don’t think any words of mine could ever do justice to the awe-inspiring, divine, luminous beauty of a sunset.
Photo by Trinity Wong.
The History of Look Up at the Sky Day
Someone else who appreciated the beauty of the skies above was a man named Jack Borden. Look Up at the Sky Day is said to have been created in honour of him. Jack Borden had been a busy Boston TV newsman all of his life. At the age of 45, he was said to have been taking a nap in a nature preserve when he looked up and saw the beauty of a sky he had never appreciated before. He explained, “In a millisecond I saw more of the sky than in all my life to that point.” This epiphany of his made him quit his corporate job and instead become an ambassador for the sky. In the 1980s, he founded For Spacious Skies, a nonprofit that encourages schoolchildren to appreciate the beauty of the skies above and advises them to not let life pass you by without looking up!
Photo by Trinity Wong.
Look Up!
This life is surely a busy one. Everyone has goals, dreams and hopes that require time and hard work— hard work that no one is truly exempted from. However, this life is also the only one you will get. There is a whole world around us putting on a broadway level production show for our eyes to experience. From the flowers to the seas, to the wind and the trees, the nature that surrounds us is a sight to behold. A sight that is worth beholding, that is worth taking time out for, and worth experiencing.
Take some time out from your hectic schedules and try to schedule time specifically for nature everyday. It could be in the early dew of morning or even when the stars of the night are out twinkling away. Be still and you will realise the company of nature may turn into a friendship like no other.
Photo by Trinity Wong.
Conclusion
As for me, whenever life gets a little too overwhelming, I like to take a walk. Just one hour alone, looking around and breathing in the calm. A lot of these times, the artist above never fails to speak to me through the paintings in the skies. When I then ponder about the magnificence up above and how little of it is in my control, it tends to make my problems seem a lot smaller and somehow makes me feel quite alright again.
Photo by Trinity Wong.
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