Stars

I always find that when life is hard or I'm over-thinking things, I go outside and look at the night sky. You who have been a reader know this. It is grounding and beautiful. It gives me balance when I need it the most. And I need the grounding now as much as ever.

Last night I commented to Luis that the Moon was beautiful and was presaging bad weather. It had a halo around it. The halo is created by moisture in the air, high enough in the atmosphere to create a small rainbow surrounding the Moon. It's gorgeous but also explains why the Moon is invisible tonight, hidden by clouds. Luis was surprised - first he couldn't find it (I always know exactly where it is every day - a little scary. I also told everyone at the table on Friday night their hire dates... they were a little freaked out. Heh, heh, heh...); then he saw it and said, "Wow, there's a halo!"

I also told him when you see a crescent Moon hanging high in the night sky, it is fiction. The crescent Moon is a daytime phenomenon. The new Moon is a completely daytime creature. The waning Moon is an early morning creature that disappears quite fast. The waxing Moon is a nighttime creature and is only seen for the first couple days of reappearing low in the West as it sets. The new Moon is four or five days invisible and I hate it (although the saving grace is the rest of the sky is incredibly, delightfully visible).

I love seeing Orion in the night sky in the winter. He begins to appear low on the horizon in mid- to late autumn and he rises through the winter and then begins to wane as the Moon does in the early spring. Orion is a summer creature for the Southern hemisphere.

When I saw this, I thought this is perfect for this bit of writing:

Stars
How countlessly they congregate
O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!--

As if with keenness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,--

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

Robert Frost