Stars in the Darkness

 

"To take a walk at night in a city that has settled into silence and a darkness that has become far too rare is to return to something precious, something lost for so long you've forgotten to miss it."

--- Margaret Renkl, Graceland, at Last

Thus does Renkl describe the days after tornadoes ripped through Nashville in March 2020, bringing the city, already Covid-bound, to its knees.

Or did it? It was a lovely, early spring that year, as it was here, gentle and rainy, and neighborliness was flourishing along with the flowers. People lingered outside because there was only darkness to go home to — and they could look up and see the stars.

But then the power company arrived, and life was back to normal. It was something to celebrate, but I picked up on a gentle melancholy in Renkl's description. There is something to be said for stepping out of the routine, as long as you don't step too far. Because once the lights came on ... the stars went out.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Shooting Stars

By 3:30 this morning the sky was filled with thunder and rain. But only a few hours earlier, it was illuminated not by lightning but by the intermittent flashes of the Perseid Meteor Shower.

Viewed from the trampoline, which allows for an upturned gaze without a crick in the neck, the stitches of light were surprising and ethereal, each one a gift I didn't expect to receive. But the best one of all came when I'd only been at my post a few minutes. 

It looked more like a artist's rendering of a comet, with an orange-yellow fireball and a streaking tail that flowed into the velvety darkness. It may have been an "earthgazer," a type of meteor I only learned about today, known for its longer streak of brightness and most commonly appearing before midnight. 

Whatever it was ... it — and all the shooting stars I saw last night — took my breath away. They reminded me of the great beyond. They reminded me to look up. 

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Falling Stars

The Perseid meteor shower had good press this year. Some reports said the celestial event would produce up to 200 shooting stars an hour. This raised all kinds of hopes and set off visions of Van Gogh's "Starry Night."

But this number didn't take into account the ambient light of the megalopolis, the heavy tree cover and the lateness (earliness?) of the hour.

Still, I managed to see a few streaks of light flash across the late summer sky.The first couple seemed a trick of the eye — a blink, a quick gleaming stitch in the firmament. But the last couple were bonafide star blasts. They illuminated not just the night sky, but all the possibilities it offers.

Not "Starry Night" — but not bad.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Night Sky

I try to keep luddite posts to a minimum, but the new phone is making this difficult. To begin with, I'm intimidated by the thing. When I do slide it out of its special pocket in my purse, I hold it like a Ming dynasty vase. This is making it difficult to familiarize myself with its amazing features.

My children are horrified that I continue to use it like a 2005 flip phone: "Have you tried the GPS yet?" ... "Have you bought any apps?" ... "You don't have any contacts, Mom."

Well, that's not entirely true. For some reason I have the email address of a high school counselor from 2009 but no numbers for people I actually need to reach.

And then there's the way that the phone completes my words and sentences. I'm a writer; I'd rather do this myself.

But there is hope. Last night a satisfied user I met at a party told me what made him buy his iPhone — an app called Night Sky. "The phone knows where you are and it shows you all the constellations and their names," he said.

Then he whipped out his iPhone — and the roof flew away and the people, too. And it reminded me of once when Tom and I were driving in Wyoming late at night and stopped to put oil in the car and looked up, almost accidentally, and could not believe our eyes.

A phone that brings the heavens into view. I'll buy that.

Blue Marble

It's the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 17 astronauts' famous photo of earth from space, the  Writer's Almanac tells me. It was the first time our planet was photographed whole and entire, its mountains and deserts and oceans in clear relief. Clouds like tufts of baby's hair after a bath, when you comb it, still wet, into ridges and whorls.

It is a snapshot in time — a cyclone forms over the Indian Ocean — but so much more. It is our own precious, fragile earth. And it was the last time humans would be in a position to photograph it. (Robots were in charge of subsequent lunar missions.)

Just coincidentally, the Writer's Almanac informs me that today is also the birthday of writer Willa Cather, who said, "We come and go but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it — for a little while."

When we see our planet from space, how can we not love it more?  Not just our own corner of it, but all of it. How can we not want to do everything we can to protect it?

Photo: NASA

Moonset

On my drive west Saturday I followed the moon as it slid slowly toward the horizon. It was a beacon for the early hours of my trip, the ones I struggle with most because it's dark and I'm tired and the steaming mug of tea has cooled and there are hours to go before I enter the Bluegrass state.

But the moon was dramatic in its slantwise trip, thanks to its full state and to the banks of clouds that colored in its wake. It seemed even larger as it reached the horizon. Big and glorious and sun-like in its setting. A full moon can mimic the sun much better than a half or a crescent.

I realized, though, as I admired the moonset, how sun-centric I am, how I compare the satellite unfairly with the star.  The moon has its own motions and missions and poetry.

I missed the moonset's final moments, because by then I was driving south through the Shenandoah Valley and the western sky was hidden from view.  But it was there when I needed it most.


(A partial-moon moonset viewed from our house.)

Nature's Way

Sometimes I think the Perseid Meteor Showers are nature's way of getting us house-dwellers outside at least one night a year. The annual event is not a particularly good way to see shooting stars, at least not in our light-polluted corner of the world.

But this morning I woke early, threw on a white hooded sweatshirt and padded outside. First I walked to one end of the block but house lights and flood lights took away what little darkness there was. Then I ventured the other direction, to the meadow.

There's an old baseball diamond there and I sat down on home plate, then reclined on the grass, hands laced under my head, eyes scanning the heavens. I looked and looked and looked. A couple of times I thought I saw a flash of light, but I decided it was just a twinkling star or a lightning bug.

It didn't really matter, though. It was enough to gaze at the stars, to bask momentarily in the immensity of space.

Moonscape

I was after the moon and I thought I could find it. Our neighbors, Nancy and Peter, were out for an evening stroll. They told me they'd seen the moon at the end of our street. And so I walked down in the darkness to the closest corner.

I could see the halo first, and when I finally got to the moon it was fuzzy yellow and perfectly framed between the shaggy trees that line Folkstone Drive. It was every bit as commanding as the sun, this moon; it was sultry and beguiling and utterly at its best. It stopped me short. I memorized its haze, its lumpy surface. I thought about beauty, its medicinal qualities, and how they are especially useful before bedtime. Like a mantra or a stanza, the moon satisfied. Just by its very being.

Aurora

The sky shimmered last night in response to Tuesday's solar flare. I missed it, but I heard it was like heat lightening on steroids.

It reminds me of the only time I have seen the northern lights. We lived in Groton then and our friend Kip knocked on the door after 9. "Look," he said, pointing up. And there, across Martin's Pond, was a surreal display of greens and purples. It was beautiful and strange and ultimately unsettling. I've never forgotten it.

We were about to leave Massachusetts and I took this as further proof that we shouldn't go. I know that Kip did. He was a native New Englander and not used to having people leave. As it turns out, Kip left us. He died from cancer in 1997. All of Groton mourned. There wasn't a spot left to stand in the old Congregational Church at his memorial.

Somehow Kip and the aurora borealis have gotten all mixed up in my mind. When the night sky dances, I think of him.


Photo: NASA

A Wink and a Smile

They were with me all the way to Metro this morning, the moon and Venus. The moon a thin paring, a baby's fingernail; Venus an emphatic dot above and to the right. Star Date magazine calls them "the most beautiful of all astronomical duos," and I agree. Clean and simple in the dawn sky, they are twin beacons.

The way they looked this morning reminded me of a wink and a smile. The moon's lopsided grin rakish and debonair; Venus with its pure eye twinkling. Don't take the day too seriously, they told me. I'm trying to listen.

Out of This World

I walked outside this morning onto the darkened deck. A cool, steady wind was blowing and the moon and stars shone bright and clear. I thought about the worlds that exist beyond our world, about possibility and eternity. Then I walked inside to read this headline: "Galaxy may have gobs of Earth-size planets."

In a paper published in the journal Science astronomers posit that there are "tens of billions" of planets the same shape and size as Earth in the Milky Way. This conclusion is based, among other things, on measuring "the minute wobbles [I love that phrase] of stars caused by the exoplanets that orbit them." And also by a method called "transiting," which looks for reductions in light coming from the star and planets being observed. Fascinating stuff, for sure. Also fascinating is the discovery of a rocky planet in a "habitable zone" around a star close to Earth.

It's too soon to know for sure of course, but it seems increasingly likely that we are not alone in the universe.

Shooting Stars

Tonight, if we're lucky, we'll look skyward and see specks of light streaking across the night sky. It's the Perseid Meteor shower, late summer's elusive fireworks. I say elusive because clouds or city lights often edge them out of eyesight. But some years the heavens have cooperated. One summer we saw the meteors from lawn chairs by a lake in Arkansas; another year we camped out in our neighbor's driveway. More often than not we just turn off our porch light, walk outside and wait. The brilliance is fleeting and it's easy to think you've imagined it. But you haven't. It's a glimpse of the beyond, and it's unforgettable.