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Saturday's magnificent weather, which graced us with neon azure skies and glorious white puffs of clouds, was an inspiring and highly symbolic finish to a week marred by the worst smog Beijing has seen all year.
The week offered a lesson about the power of nature versus relatively impotent humankind. And a humbling lesson it was, for sure.
After all, the greenish-brown blanket of filth that held us captive for several days, just as world leaders gathered in Paris to discuss the poisoning of this great planet, was dispelled not by any efforts on the ground, but by the merciful intervention of a higher power.
Who knows what might have happened had the skies not sent their strong, welcome winds through the capital, dispersing the doomsday gloom that reduced visibility to a pitiful few meters?
True, the city's and nation's officialdom, quite wisely, halted production in polluting industries and sent inspectors scrambling across the metropolis to root out those who defied the crackdown.
This was, of course, too little, too late. And it posed an awkward situation, since China has hoped to blaze the way in Paris for an agreement establishing that, in addition to cooperation of developed and developing nations, healing the planet starts with resolute efforts by each nation at home.
This prompts the question, for Paris and beyond, of whether we have the capability, let alone the will, to tackle the mess that humankind collectively has created across the globe. Are we, in fact, the lords of all we survey?
Our obsession with harnessing, mastering, altering, chopping down, changing the course of and, basically, making a mess of everything pristine is precisely what stirred the pot of climate change.
As far back as man's first "creation" of fire, humans have increasingly believed they control this realm, and therefore are entitled to shape, shift and shorten the lifespan of all things natural, whether on two legs, four legs, with fins or wings, or rooted in the ground.
Now we arrive at a time when we must prove that we truly are masters of our little corner of the universe.
But can the words alone of the world's politicians, no matter how well-informed, actually become the winds of change we need?
If we cannot even rein in the industries that, with no regard for our welfare, changed the course of the planet, what good will mere words or agreements accomplish? And although 2020, the target for beginning our near-miraculous efforts, isn't far off, it's still comfortably distant to let us continue our wayward habits - never mind that remedial action is needed right now.
So, if we don't change our ways immediately, maybe we had better hope that those higher powers, like they did last week in Beijing, will send a healing wind across our planet.
Let's hope, too, that nature will be as benevolent and merciful as Guanyin.
Contact the writer at jameshealy@chinadaily.com.cn
