Return of the Cosmos

A Blue Moon

It is easy to miss what is going on in the sky, particularly if you are, like us, surrounded by trees. But this full moon, on July one, was hard to miss. In fact, it had been keeping me up at night, presenting itself in the wee hours after our nightly storms had cleared, glowing brilliantly above the southern horizon, a flashlight in my sleeping face. This July happens to have two full moons, the second of which is known as a blue moon.

If it weren't for an evening out at a friend's place in Minneapolis, I'm not sure I would have noticed the peculiar proximity of two planets fairly close to the horizon. As we sat talking about our art and possibilities, I perceived this celestial phenomenon without uttering a word. I may have missed the planets at their closest moment, but the event warranted an evening trip to the road just to our west, one that is up on the ridge and had been cleared for farming years ago.

Venus, the brightest body in the sky other than the moon and sun, is on the left and Jupiter sits to its right.

Not quite a celestial phenomenon, but the reddened light of the afternoon sun clued us in to smoke in the lower atmosphere. Originating in Canadian wildfires, the smoke arced down with the jet, creating hazy sun, sunset-like light earlier in the evening, and the low-hanging moon became an unofficial blood moon.

The Slow Life Or I Just Turned Fortyfive

One of the tropes of speaking about a move from the city to the "country" is that life slows down, that you slow down. Some falsely reason that to slow down, they should aim for the country. 

What I have found is the movement of the earth. I see it in the shadows and celestial bodies.

Before I can see the rising sun, a window reflects it from nearly a half mile away.

Frenetic, self-centered city life dispenses with this perception. Time is human time, measured in seconds and minutes so numerous as to seem endless. It becomes the measurement of how long to, intervals of trains, a meeting at four, of dinner at eight. Children are unformed adults wed to their colleges before they can speak (yet only they have the perception of slowed time). Nursing facilities are horror houses, what happened to these people?  Celestial events are spectacles detached from prescience. 

No, the country hasn't slowed me down. It's only made me aware of how fast we are going.

Interstellar

Two weeks ago we went to a late showing of the Chris Nolan film, Interstellar, at a three-dollar theater. The take away is manifold, but one thing sticks to my ribs: we are more than corn farmers contented to feed 5 billion people. We have to tackle our fears, (spoiler alert) we have to dive into the black hole if we are going to achieve our promise, and we can't forget who we are (emotional beings) in the process.  

Humanity hates toiling in the dirt, we're intellectual beings, explorers, so get on to it. 

Don't be nostalgic, either -leave our prior existence back where it belongs. When we're in that new place, be in that new place. Don't burden us with longings for home or waste energy trying to recreate it. Our minds are the only thing that make us unique and they are built for adaptation. Adapt.

Don't let climate calamity slide us into a new dark age -get out into the dark.