Waking up to the Moon

The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.

Frederic Lawrence Knowles

02/23/24 Friday morning - the moon by itself

02/23/24 Friday Morning - the moon, in context, in the western sky

02/24/24 Saturday morning - golden light on her face

02/25/2024 Sunday morning, falling into the field

02/26/24 - Monday, between the branches of a tree

The earth, in fair and grateful exchange, pays back to the moon an illumination similar to that which it receives from her throughout nearly all the darkest gloom of the night.

Galileo Galilei

In a field in Texas,

in the early morning light -

I watch the moon descending.

Old friend of earth,

she bonds me to

all who see,

or have ever seen

her radiant face -

in our lineage

of wonder.

Visiting family in Texas this week. I woke up every morning to see the moon, to have a little quiet time outside to myself. I realized while I was standing out there in the field watching the moon descend in the west, and the sun rise in the east - that people have been doing this for thousands of years. It made me feel connected to a long line of dreamers…including you.

Thank you so much for being here. Love y’all.

…and while the moon was setting in the west - all week - the sun rose on the opposite side of the field.

Once in a Blue Moon

The surface of the Moon is not smooth, uniform, and precisely spherical as a great number of philosophers believe it to be, but is uneven, rough, and full of cavities and prominences, being not unlike the face of the Earth, relieved by chains of mountains and deep valleys.

Galileo Galilei

Fragment

It was a quiet day,

but the night was wild -

with a fire blazing,

a chorus of cicadas singing,

and a giant blue moon

rising in the black sky.

The wild night is calling. - Van Morrison

Who has smelled the woodsmoke at twilight, who has seen the campfire burning, who is quick to read the noises of the night?

Rudyard Kipling

Moon Rising through the Trees

I wanted to share the moon photo while the moon is still nearly full, just in case you haven’t seen it. Maybe it will inspire you to go outside tonight. The first and last photos were taken with a new telephoto lens. After a big learning curve, I think I finally got the settings right. Anyway, I was up pretty late figuring it out (and waiting for the moon to clear the trees), so I’ll keep this one short.

Thank you so much for being here! I will see you next week!

Looking Up

When you look up at the sky, you have a feeling of unity which delights you and makes you giddy.

Ferdinand Hodler

A woodpecker  

shuffles up the dead palm tree,

pausing and knocking,

picking out her morning meal

in tiny bites.

She shuffles and knocks

pauses and eats,

up and up,

until gradually

she’s circling

the frondless tip -

where she stops

and lifts her head

to the blue sky.

I spent a week looking up, and this is what I saw:

Seagulls flying overhead, calling.

The noisy green parrots looking down -

wondering what I was looking at.

Crows that alight anywhere,

mourning doves who do not approve of crows.

And then the moon,

the moon,

the waning moon.

Looking up was another assignment from the Zen Camera book by David Ulrich. He meant it more generally, as in keeping your head up and looking around you, observing your surroundings rather than burying your face in your phone, or getting lost in your thoughts, but I decided to take it literally for this week. So, here’s to looking up!

Thank you for being here!

Once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up.

Leonardo da Vinci