Chapoquoit sunset, 2021-12-05
The image above is the sunset as seen from my backyard. More accurately, the image is the sunset from 225 feet directly above my backyard with the drone facing west overlooking West Falmouth harbor and Chapoquoit beach beyond. I’ve been going out most evenings for the past couple of weeks to get drone images of the sunset above my backyard. Many people love Chapoquoit sunsets in my town. I love them, too. Years ago, I was standing on Chapoquoit beach with a small crowd of strangers watching a spectacular sunset. A kaleidoscopic light show happened in the sky above us for several minutes after the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, and spontaneous applause and cheering erupted from the crowd of onlookers around me. It was a moment when I believed I was part of a group sharing a deep sense of connection to each other and the planet on which we live. No cathedral built by people was a match for that sky.
For most of our species’ 300,000 years on Earth, sunsets have been the best show (and the only show) to see at the end of every day. Today, sunsets are too often spent indoors under artificial light with no awareness of the change from day into night. We’ve stopped watching one of the most moving shows in nature. We’ve abandoned a daily ritual of connecting to the cosmos from which we were born. We are poorer for it.
Monte