A flute player under a bridge in Prospect Park. The sun is out. The sound of the flute is so ancient. You turn a corner on a path; you can't see the flute player, but you can hear it. You can understand that instruments came not only out of a need for human beings to communicate with each other, but to speak with, and summon, nature. The flute was a way of hypnotizing and re-naturalizing the subject, reminding them that Dionysus was not dead and that nature never dies, never stops singing.
There's no doubt that spring is how you know that God is here: the first flowering plants, and maybe where it’s still cold enough, the thawing of the snow.1
I think there's a certain existential duty that comes with being able to reflect on and synthesize information. What redeems as a species is our ability to think about our mortality, our corporeality. And I think all beauty and meaning come out of this awareness (being pointed towards death).