Alexandersmap

    Category: Stargazing

    • Something Ethereal

      When this is all over with I’m going to a favorite breakfast place and settle into a deep conversation with my table mates, offering artful-disguised-as-clumsy banter to the waitress who’s heard it all before but plays along anyway, and savor eggs cooked by an unseen savior who hides just on the other side of a small window. When this is over that’s what I’ll do.

      Last night we watched the crescent moon reluctantly drop down in the western sky, coaxed along in a slow dance of wonder by the stunning beauty of Venus. I burned an entire wheelbarrow of split wood in a pagan tribute to the dancers, sending sparkling tributes upwards to the heavens. My breathing raspy from the wood smoke and my mind calculating the cure for one too many gin and tonics before I turned in for the night. The pandemic hasn’t robbed us of this ritual just yet. May these nights last forever (maybe with less gin – sneaky spirit that it is).

      The morning after such celebrations is a great time to go out for breakfast and make new memories over super-heated coffee. Perhaps that’s why I miss it so right now, or maybe I’m just ready for close banter with the outer circle again. We make our splash in this world and our ripples ring outward, intersecting with other rings from other splashes and others still, all bouncing off one another in a continuous dance across the surface of our lives. Social isolation removes the bounces, and we just ring across the surface touching nothing. Offering deeper moments with our immediate circle to be sure, but we need the interaction with others to influence our concentric circles. There’s only so much introspection you can tolerate without testing out ideas on the rest of the world.

      On their own the crescent moon and brilliant Venus are striking, but when they dance together it becomes something breathtaking, something… ethereal. So too we might offer our own mark on the world as individuals, but need others around us to truly illuminate our place in the universe. So there you are; two analogies in one blog post, blended together and served piping hot, like that coffee would be. Cue the waitress rolling her eyes.

    • A Bit of Thoreau and Sagan on Earth Day

      I toyed with the idea of a long blog post about Earth Day. Instead I’ll drop these two quotes. I think Thoreau and Sagan would have gotten along quite well. I’d hardly keep pace, but would love to sit in on that conversation:

      “This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” – Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

    • We Are Stardust

      Serendipity lately seems to be taking me to the stars.  I dance with the stars often, as anyone who follows me can attest.  But the stars seem aligned (sorry) for me to write about them once again today.  It began with Ryan Holiday quoting the familiar phrase “we are stardust” in his exceptional book Stillness Is The Key.  That got me thinking about the Joni Mitchell song Woodstock (with apologies to Joni and CSNY, my favorite version is James Taylor singing it on the Howard Stern Show or if you prefer, in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony for Joni Mitchell)

      “We are stardust
      Billion year old carbon
      We are golden
      Caught in the devil’s bargain
      And we’ve got to get ourselves
      Back to the garden”
      – Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

      Heavy stuff when you think about it; we’re made up of stardust; billion year old carbon recycled into our present form.  Our bodies are made up of the timeless material of infinity.  And our thoughts are built on the timeless wisdom of the ages.  That makes us… timeless in a way, doesn’t it?  And one with the very universe around us.  Whoah.  But could this be true?  I believe so, but sought out validation with a Google search nonetheless (because isn’t that where the truth is?)  And I came across a Carl Sagan quote confirming that yes, we are indeed made up of star stuff:

      “We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff,” – Carl Sagan

      So this fascination with the stars is a longing to return? Maybe, but I think it’s more a feeling of solidarity with the infinite universe around me. A way for the universe to know itself… From the daffodils patiently biding their time in the sun to the stars I gaze up at light years away from that sun. To infinity and beyond, if you will. My reading finally brought me this morning to W.D. Auden (via Brain Pickings) and this stunning poem, included in its entirety because I just couldn’t help myself:

      “Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
      That, for all I care, I can go to hell,
      But on earth is the least
      We have to dread from man or beast.

      How should we like it were stars to burn
      With a passion for us, we could not return?
      If equal affection cannot be,
      Let the more loving one be me.

      Admirer as I think I am
      Of stars that do not give a damn,
      I cannot, now I see them, say
      I missed one terribly all day.

      Were all stars to disappear or die,
      I should learn to look at an empty sky
      And feel its total dark sublime,
      Though this may take me a little time.”
      – W.H. Auden, The More Loving One

      When the student is ready the teacher will appear.  I’m a ready student, looking up at the universe in wonder, and marveling at the bounty being returned to me by timeless teachers.  And isn’t that being truly alive, getting out of our own heads and dancing with this timeless wisdom?  We’re all stars dancing in the universe. Some brighter than others. Personally, I strive to be brighter still that I might offer more. If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.

    • The Stages of the Moon

      I spent time in the passenger seat of the car last night contemplating the waxing crescent moon.  The stages of the moon are something I contemplate more than I should, but it’s a good exercise in awareness of the world around you, and a connection to people around the world now and people for as long as there’s been people.  Everyone who can or could look up at the sky and recognize the moon for what it is has experienced the same pattern recognition.  You may not know the names, but you know the shapes and thus the stages of the moon.

      A new moon is a blank slate.  The moon is completely obscured, though you might make it out in the sky.  Most people don’t think about a new moon because they aren’t seeing it in the sky.  But the moon doesn’t go on vacation to Mars for a stage, it’s still there with the shades pulled down.

      The next stage is the waxing crescent, when you get that fingernail sliver of moon shining.  But how do you know a waxing from a waning?  By which side the sliver is on.  That shade pulls from right to left, so when you see part of the moon illuminated on the right side that’s a waxing moon, and when it’s illuminated on the left side that’s a waning moon.  When I was younger I had it backwards because I thought of the shade pulling left to right, the way we read English.  Nope, it’s right to left, like reading Hebrew or Arabic.

      “Slipping softly through the sky
      Little horned, happy moon,
      Can you hear me up so high?
      Will you come down soon?” – Amy Lowell, The Crescent Moon

      After the waxing crescent the shade pulls further to the left illuminating more of the moon.  When it looks like an American football or bigger it’s called a gibbous moon.  And again, when the moon is illuminated on the right side it’s a waxing moon, so now we have the waxing gibbous moon.  Welcome to the party!  The waxing gibbous and it’s cousin the waning gibbous are the wallflowers of the sky party.  Everyone carries on about the full moon because it’s so full of itself, and the crescent moon twins are a bit flirty, liking the attention that comes with being so seductive.  Not so the gibbous cousins.  They don’t dance as well, step on a few toes along the way and that makes them a bit shy. But let’s have some love for these gibbous!  What would our sky be without them?

      We’ve finally arrived at the full moon, and it’s so full of itself that it starts having nicknames.  You can’t just call it the full moon, this character wants you to call it the Harvest Moon or the Milk Moon or the Beaver Moon.  Okay, we’ll humor you full moon, on your next debut we’ll call you the Cold Moon.  You good with that? Full Moon Fever is a real thing, everyone goes a bit crazy when this character comes around. Tides get bigger and minds get zanier; thanks full moon.

      Now the shade starts closing, again right to left, so where we had illumination before we start seeing shade.  Does the full moon notice the Earth casting shade at it?  Does it care?  At first it’s a small sliver of shade and you barely notice the change, but give it a day or two and and our wall flower has stolen the show from old Beaver Moon and we have that familiar football shape illuminated on the left side of the moon; yup, our old friend waning gibbous has come to town, doing it’s clydesdale dance across the sky.  I can relate to you waning gibbous, it’s not easy having two left feet, but keep dancing anyway, just mind the toes.

      Finally we reach the last call of the stages of the moon and the light is just a sliver on the left side of the moon.  It’s that flirty younger twin the waning crescent, here to dazzle you with her dance moves and seductive lighting.  The crescent twins are fuel for the poets and dreamers.  Who doesn’t love to see that sliver of moon rising out of the east, dressed in a bit of pink and yellow before slipping into something white?  The waning crescent offers a lovely frame for the celestial dance beyond, a star in its own right even if only a moon.  Don’t tell her that, this is her time!

      But waning infers things are wrapping up soon, and so it is with the moon. But one last hurrah for our friend.  The next stage is the old moon, where just a tiny sliver of light appears on left edge of the moon.  We’re all moving towards that stage, and it’s one more reminder to make the most of the day at hand.  Dance with the sky, make the most of your arc across the heavens, and try not to step on any toes out there.

       

    • A Walk in Time

      Too much indulgence at dinner drove a desire to move, and I went out in the dark night to walk the street.  I’ve walked this street many times over the last twenty years, thinking  too much at times.  For fifteen of those years I had a loyal companion, Bodhi, who was patient with me even as I wasn’t always patient with him.  Labradors want to explore the world on their own terms, and when he was younger I wrestled with his instincts and my selfish desire to keep moving.  As we got older together I learned to slow down, and regret not giving him enough time to linger on the neighborhood dog message boards he inevitably sniffed and marked along the way.  Perhaps he was complaining about the short leash I’d give him, but he wasn’t one to complain much.

      The neighborhood has changed in twenty years.  People come and go, usually from the same houses, while the rest of us anchor the cul du sac with memories of block parties, eventful storms, swarms of kids trick-or-treating on Halloween, and the occasional scandal.  Some quirky people, some gossiping and manipulative hens, some hard chargers, and at least one oddball who walked in the dark at 10 PM every night with his dog.  But we all tended to look out for one another in some fashion.

      Of the hundred or so people who have lived on this street these twenty years, we’ve seen our share of drama.  Three couples divorced, two people went to prison, two women had breast cancer and one man chopped his fingers off trying to clear his snowblower.  They stitched them back on, but it dominated conversation for a few weeks.  But there’s plenty of good on the street too.  Kids who grew up, went to college and became contributing members of society.  Successful careers, at least one book published on the street and one aspiring author working to add another, a locally famous weatherman, and a few recent retirees checking the box on a career.  The American dream, and some of the drawbacks to pursuing it, all on one street.

      The biggest, most expensive home on the street is directly behind my own house.  The cul du sac loops around like a “j” with a long driveway leading back to the big house, creating a “u”.  It’s twice the size of my own home, with a five car garage, movie theater, fitness room and a stunning view of rolling fields of a horse farm.  The long driveway is lined with light poles on either side, which we derisively call the runway when lit up.  The house has changed hands three times in twenty years.  The first owner was a crooked chiropractor who went to prison for a large scale insurance scam he orchestrated.  He built a flashy house, drove both a Hummer and a Dodge Viper and trolled for young women on the streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts while his wife was home raising children.  His house of cards came crashing down and his wife and children had to move out of the neighborhood to a condo in another town while his accommodations were more sparse.  That house has turned twice since then but we still refer to it as the original owners house.

      Walking the street alone at 10 PM doesn’t feel quite right anymore.  The street is the same yet everything is different.  Late evening walks are best done with a companion.  Bodhi is gone, the kids are in different corners of the world, and my bride has surrendered to prime time television.  But I walked anyway, if only to digest a bit, to think, and in the futile hope of seeing a few shooting stars.  Streaky overcast skies offered a glimpse of a few stars and a hazy moon, but wasn’t going to pull the covers off for a proper show.  Just me and the acorns falling.  And memories of twenty years on a single street in New Hampshire.

    • Writing Illuminates

      October 7th and there’s no escaping it now. The morning concedes more and more of herself to the greedy darkness. Darkness, not satiated, comes back for more sooner and sooner each afternoon. The days are more beautiful than ever this time of year in New Hampshire, there’s just less time in the day to enjoy it all.

      The available light changes routine. No going outside to read in the still morning light now. Instead I find myself huddled inside during the magic hour. This won’t do at all. Perhaps a brisk morning walk outside would serve me better, with reading later? But thoughts of work encroach the later in the morning it gets, and by 7 AM there’s no escaping the feeling that the jig is up. Daylight brings responsibility, there’s no more buffer when the earth turns a cold shoulder to the sun.

      Still, there’s beauty in darkness. That old huntsman Orion greeted me in all his glory over the weekend. He’s tired of playing hide and seek with the Northern Hemisphere. And I delighted in greeting him once again. True, the Autumnal Equinox makes stargazing more accessible. There’s that. Take what the day brings you, that’s the answer isn’t it?

      Darkness grudgingly concedes the day, and I must be moving on. Writing calls, but so does the day job. The endless wrestling match between creative output and economic responsibilities. One voice tends to dominate the conversation. So what’s a writer to do? The answer, it seems, is to get up even earlier tomorrow. More time alone in the darkness, though not in the dark. Writing… illuminates.

    • Stargazing

      “But let’s not talk about fare-thee-wells now
      The night is a starry dome
      And they’re playin’ that scratchy rock and roll
      Beneath the Matala Moon” – Joni Mitchell, “Carey”

      These particular lyrics jump out at me every time I hear this song.  The spell of a starry dome night on a beach in Mexico with rock and roll music playing.  I’ve done my best to duplicate that portrait many times over the years, sometimes on a beach somewhere, sometimes just in the backyard around a fire pit, and sometimes on an island on a New Hampshire lake with loud music, fire and friends.  Stars over water, stars high on mountain tops, stars in the desert…  always stargazing in the darkest corners I can find.  Epic bonding time with my dog for years before he couldn’t go on our stargazing walks anymore…  and it seems I wouldn’t without him.

      The days grow shorter with the tilt of the earth away from the sun in the northern hemisphere.  Better suited for seeing that starry dome overhead.  A good reason to get back to nighttime walks, head tilted up for constellations, satellites, and the occasional shooting star.  There’s so much going on up there, and we sit in our houses unaware of the dance happening above the roof.

      “You know Orion always comes up sideways,
      Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
      And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
      Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
      I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
      After the ground is frozen, I should have done
      Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
      Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
      To make fun of my way of doing things,
      Or else fun of Orion for having caught me . . .”

       – Robert Frost, “The Star Splitter”

      Orion returns to the dance soon.  I’ve missed this sky dancer most of all these summer months.  I smiled reading Frost’s description of Orion throwing a leg sideways over the mountains.  Were I that clever with a few choice words!  I’ll get there, or at least enjoy the process of trying to get there.  We can’t all be Robert Frost or Joni Mitchell spinning magic in words.  But they weren’t that once either.  Just get out there and do your dance under the stars.  They won’t judge you.