So we got into the car around 10:30 and left Jack and Devon’s house and drove around the corner and up the hill, and Lo! Lo, I say!
Biggest dang orange crescent moon ever, total sky hammock, with the biggest brightest juiciest star ever, tipped just off its toe, on a solo spangle, just hanging there over the horizon. Gobsmacked doesn’t cover it. “That’s got to be Venus,” I said to Dave, totally guessing because he wasn’t liable to contradict me, and accidentally getting it right. I have seen a fair amount of sky shows over the years and I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It’s as though Aphrodite flang her giant flag all over the western sky. The flag of Turkey, actually, for some reason, but whatever.
Venus is the goddess of love and beauty, and all the trouble that goes along with that. She is a stunner. That’s probably why I guessed her instead of big ol’ spotty Jupiter. According to the Romans, she was born when Saturn killed Uranus, sliced off his wiener, and threw it into the ocean, where it generated what was delicately called “sea foam,” as if. Up she comes out of the “foam” standing in a big scallop shell and the rest is history, or something just as good.
Anyway it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Huge orange slice of moon and big bright star that had obviously just rolled off it. OMG OMG OMG, I said to Dave, Jack and Devon have to see this! And I don’t have my phone! And you don’t have your phone! OMG OMG OMG! What to do, what to do! And Dave said, after giving me one of those looks, “They’re a block and a half away. Turn the car around.”
Always an analog solution.
We turned the car around and fetched them out and soon we all stood there at the crest of the hill with our smacked gobs, and I wished aloud I had my camera, even though I have never ever taken a decent picture of a night sky and wasn’t likely to do so now, and Dave said “You could just look at it,” which is what he does.
This, but bigger and oranger. |
I did. If Venus had been any closer to the moon, he would have poked a hole in her. She’s Venus, he probably wanted to. And of course both objects were enormous, about to set. Scientists insist that this bigness is an illusion, but they have at least three different theories about what causes it, to which I’d add a fourth: they’re wrong. The moon really is freaking huge on the horizon. It starts out all dilated and nervous, and then it gets smaller after it has a chance to do some reconnaissance and climb up the sky a little where we can’t get at it, until it gets to the other side, when it blows up to do one last nanner-nanner at us before dropping safely out of sight.
Oh, victim of the modern world. Along with thinking I needed a cell phone, and a camera, I also wondered why I hadn’t read about this in advance so I didn’t miss it. But is it always good to pre-smack your gob? Maybe not. This vision was made more stupendous by its serendipity.
It’s not that I think knowledge ruins things. It doesn’t, unless your thing is ignorance. I have friends who are so attuned to the sky that they can watch the swing of the stars and the perambulations of the planets in perfect intimacy, their minds at ease in a friendly web of stardust and time. The constellations are their personal friends, the neighborhood of the near universe is familiar and dear. Their joy is amplified.
And they’re not necessarily scientists. Once there were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night: they knew all about it. I’m a city girl. I don’t know as much as the shepherds in the field.
But still the glory shone round about me.
I like the way scientists now tell us about all kinds of moons, red moons, supermoons, etc. It is like there is a different universe up there than when I was a child.
Yeah. We have to have lots of CHOICES now.
Damn' shame we don't have better political choices now…
I've got a lot of people I'm happy to get behind. And at least here, there's a huge difference between the major parties and what they stand for.
Keep an eye out for Mars in the next week or so – it’ll be super bright and, bonus, reddish. Look for it in the southeast when it rises in the evening. Apparently it won’t be this big and bright til 2035 or something. Go smack that gob.
Ooo, I will–I do know where it is this time of year. So the reddishness isn't wildfires?
Oh, I wish I could have seen that with you, or even without you. The picture you have there is good, but seeing the orangeness and brilliance would be better.
I still don't know why I couldn't find any good photos of it. I think everyone else went to bed earlier.
These sights are one of the best reasons to live way outside the city. It is gob smacking amazing what is up in the sky when the sun isn't. I just wish I knew what the names of all those things are besides just "the stars". I wonder what it looks like from another planet?
Actually, I consider that the #1 best reason to live outside the city.
Our previous home was on a ten acre block of (mainly) eucalypt trees. We had the best views of Halle , Kohotek, the Pinatubo eruption debris and everyday starlight.
Sounds so exotic from here!
There is an app for that….I think it is called night sky. I used to have it on my phone. Pull out the phone, point it to the sky, it identifies all the starry stuff above, below and around you. Pretty cool.
It is. But not helpful if you don't have your phone.
Sometimes I wish we didn't have trees and mountains all around us so that I could actually see the horizon from our house.
Hmm. Pray for a new subdivision?
Skies are a blur to me these days, they get drowned in fog at night but I'll stick the gob out and wait for this. I did read about it, somewhere.
XO
WWW
I checked again the next night but Venus had taken off running.
There were some good writers in the Bible, until they got messed up by modern language. If they were as funny as you, I might have to get religion.
King James still rules in my house.
Two things stuck out at me, like the moon aimed at Venus: the use of the word 'flang', my favorite, and the particular lilt of this: "sea foam," as if. About died laughing. Love you Murr 😉
Well I did too. Sea foam. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? PS Sometimes I fling in a flang just for you.
It was the "as if" after the sea foam that cracked me up. And I am honored to be the recipient of your flangs.
I'm with Leslie; I love the word "flang" and I remember it from a previous post. You made it up, right? And who swears at trees? I do, when all the trees here block my sight of the stars, moon and planets. Atlanta is called "the city in the trees" for a reason, and normally they are fine, but at night? Not so much.
I'm pretty sure I didn't make up "flang." But maybe I did. It's got a Pogo feel to it.
You are right up there with Barbara Kingsolver in your poetic descriptions of nature, with a cupful of humor to keep us all in awe.
Thanks. Can I get a publisher now? 🙁
I remember a drawing I did when I was in grade school of a crescent moon and a star right next to it, inside the crescent. The teacher said that was impossible, as the star would have to be between the moon and earth. This really stuck with me. The whole moon is always there even if most of it is dark. What a concept. I see from your photo that Venus was right on the edge there…one more step to the right and she'd be hiding, or mooning us.
Right. And I can't remember seeing the "rest" of the moon that night, but it had to have been right there. Has anyone seen the moon eclipse a planet? Must happen sometimes.
We have a lunar eclipse to look forward to in the next few days. And if cloud doesn't cover it (which given our dearth of rainfall seems unlikely) we have been promised a red moon. So I will be out in the small hours to ogle the sky (and probably take woeful photos).
Unfortunately, it won't be visible to those of us in North America!!
The last good lunar eclipse I remember looking at was another of my favorite sky events ever. Not only did we have a red moon, but there was a comet!
I couldn't get a decent night picture until I used the "beach and snow" setting on my point-and-shoot camera. The moral to that story is to always try the illogical possibility.
Thank you, I'm going to try that next! How weird.
Really good blog post. Right when I needed one. Thanks.
Thank YOU.
This is wonderful, Murr. Thank you.
Thank you. It was.
How is it that you can go to your friends’ house ( or anywhere) WITHOUT phones!!
I racked up over 55 years without a cell phone and the last ten I have been able to view it as a mere convenience. I just haven't taken to it. I don't know if I'm right, but I suspect this is a freedom I'd be advised to maintain.
YES!!
The shepherds in the field saw miraculous wonders in the sky, I like your photos here of Venus and the horned moon. I always think of the crescent moon as the horned moon, from that wonderful poem about the sea and the albatross.
I wish I'd taken photos–I merely took this one from the internet, and it was nothing as wonderful as the real thing.