Election day eclipse

Eclipsing.

The most important hour is always the present; the most significant person is precisely the one who is sitting across from you right now; the most necessary work is always love.

~ Meister Eckhart

Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do. The minor choices we make are a kind of vote, making it more or less likely that free and fair elections will be held in the future. In the politics of the everyday, our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much.

~ Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

From light to darkness and although I didn’t get to see it (because the moon had set), I have faith that it moved from darkness to light.

I was up and at ’em at 4:00 this morning, watching the lunar eclipse.  I knew I wouldn’t get to see it all.  I wanted to watch what I could until dawn arrived and the moon found its way below the horizon of sky and water out at the Point.  The next full lunar eclipse is not until March of 2025, and who knows where I’ll be by then?

eclipse (n.)  c. 1300, from Old French eclipse “eclipse, darkness” (12c.), from Latin eclipsis, from Greek ekleipsis “an eclipse; an abandonment,” literally “a failing, forsaking,” from ekleipein “to forsake a usual place, fail to appear, be eclipsed,” from ek “out” (see ex-) + leipein “to leave” (from PIE root *leikw- “to leave”).

~ Online Etymology Dictionary

When the light appears.

Some say that an eclipse is an omen.  Some believe it to be a blessing or a prayer of some kind.  The astrologers are making all sorts of vague predictions about this eclipse.  A time of great challenges, questions, pushes and prods.  A time of alchemy and difficulty, sudden changes, and revolution.  May you live in interesting times…

On the horizon at the Point (facing east and the sunrise).

We could all make similar vague predictions about this day.  It feels as though so much is hinging on the outcome of this election in the U.S.  I do think the reminders to find security, or grounding, within ourselves are good.  Sudden change can happen at any time.  Learn to stabilize yourself from within yourself and your community of people (who are not necessarily family or neighbors but who have become family or neighbors), and from that place of groundedness, learn to embrace the unknown.

I don’t know why I don’t go out to the Point for sunrise more often. It’s so beautiful out there.

An election is not really about sudden change.  It could be a while before we know the results.  It could be a while before we know what those results mean.  So, I’ll do what I do.  Go out for walks, do my morning practice of asana, breath, and chanting, watch the sunrise and sunset, chop wood, carry water, paint, write, love.  Maybe I’ll say the Serenity Prayer a few times because I need to remind myself that there are many, many things I can’t control.

Thinning.

It is chillier here today than it has been.  Windy, gusty, blustery weather.  It is quite invigorating, especially out at the Point.  As I put in the caption somewhere above, I don’t know why I don’t go out there more often to watch the sunrise.  Even with the wind making so much noise, it was peaceful in a wild, untamed way.

The wind will likely clear a lot of the leaves from the trees today.

The moon was full and bright when I first woke up.  I didn’t go outside to photograph it until it was nearly eclipsed.  As the moon moved into the earth’s shadow and there was little light left to be seen, the moon turned a lovely and brilliant shade of orange.  I know they are saying it was supposed to be red but it looked orange to me.  Blood orange, perhaps.  I would show you except none of my photos came out well enough for you to see anything other than a dark sky with hints of blood orange moon.  I’ve photographed a few lunar eclipses over the years and forgotten anything I learned about how to do it.  Just being there, watching, was better than messing with the camera and trying to figure it out.  Besides, there will be thousands of lovely photographs of the eclipse on the internet today.  I’m sure, if you want to, you’ll find something better than I could have captured.

Mother Nature creates her own mandalas.

What I enjoyed most were the stars.  Brilliant, brilliant lights twinkling and glowing in the sky with hints of the Milky Way.  I imagine a few of them are planets (the one that looked so red must have been Mars), but I’m not sure.  I could have looked them up.  I didn’t want to.  I just wanted to be there with the stars, without naming them.  There were two constellations I recognize.  The Big Dipper.  Orion.  That’s about it.  I think if I spent more time with the stars, I’d give them my own names.

Autumn light and shadows.

I reckon that’s enough from me for today.  Thank you so much for visiting.  I hope you had a chance to get a glimpse of the moon and the eclipse this morning.  Or maybe a sunrise or sunset.  Let’s meet out at the Point for sunset this evening.  It’s scheduled for 4:56 PM.  Bundle up.  There’s a cold wind blowing and no place to hide from it out by the water.

Please be safe, be well, and take a little time to just Be.  ♥

Through the woods.

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  3,036)  Learning how to sit in liminal space and time, embracing the mystery of it and realizing it is a place of possibilities.  3,037)  The personality of trees.  3,038)  Being able to witness part of the lunar eclipse this morning.  3,039)  The nap I’m going to take (I’m writing this in the morning and I’m fairly certain that, having been up since 4 AM, I will need/want a nap).  3,040)  The privilege of having choices.

I don’t know what kind of fungus this is, but it’s beautiful.