It was cold. February cold. -5 degrees cold, plus windchill.

But that made for perfect viewing conditions. Amazingly, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the moon filled up the night sky like a giant flashlight searching for some ancient, lost love. I watched the eclipse envelope the moon in shadow over at Andy’s place and then drove home after finishing up practice. I told myself I wasn’t going to break out the telescope since it was so fucking cold, but after staring at the moon in my driveway for a bit I figured, “what the hell; why not?”

I nearly froze my ass (well my hands really) off trying, but I eventually managed to snap a decent shot with the aid of the telescope. Check it out:

The moon looked amazing through the telescope. I couldn’t replicate what I was seeing because my hands kept shaking from the cold. I snapped about a dozen crappy shots before the one above came out. I fled inside instantly and put on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

I don’t know what an eclipse “means” but this one meant something to me. I just wish things were different. Everything’s fucked up in my life and the world as a whole, but I think seeing an eclipse can remind you that some things really are preordained. How many hundreds of years ago was this eclipse predicted in some ancient ephemeris? I dunno, but like clockwork it happened last night. There’s something comforting about that.

Mostly I hope that this eclipse is the harbinger of a new era, as it was 500 years ago when Columbus used a similar eclipse to scare the shit out of some natives. Maybe this time we can start off on the right foot and bring everything up a notch. We each set the tone for our reality. We can erase our fears and free our souls from this torment if we’d each let our hearts ring true. But there’s the rub; we need to do it together. One person freeing his mind is a lunatic. A billion doing the same is a global awakening.

I keep hoping against hope; a fool’s hope. But sometimes that’s all you’ve got. And even with the pain and heartache of being let down so many times I wouldn’t trade that foolish hope for anything except the truth. I know the bell is cracked, but I hope it will ring again someday anyway. Is that stupidity? Delusion?

I know it’s stupid. My logical brain tells me unequivocally that it is. But something deeper tells me that things are not always as they seem.

Maybe that will be the first lesson of a new era.


 

You can screech back, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Ring in a New Era with a Frigid Lunar Eclipse”

  1. LMMS says:

    I decided that today, after making it over the ‘hump’ of my work marathon, that I would hide from the world in an office far removed from the rest of my workplace and have a ‘real’ lunch for the first time in several days. I also decided to see what was going on elsewhere and landed here.I have nothing to say other than I hear you; and feel your emotion more than I can express. Perhaps if I saw this amazing site myself I would have a better grasp upon what I should say… Just know that you have touched me and have given me a sliver of hope on which to cling for which I thank you.Here’s hoping that the fucked up world in which we are living (both personally and world wide) finds a way to right itself – soon.

Screech your thoughts here:

*