More Gaze, Less Craze
With a recent intention to stop and ‘listen’ to trees while hiking, I keep feeling the trees ask me to slow down and stay a while. Every time I do this, the question arises—Why are humans in such a hurry? Whether it’s originating in my consciousness or I’m feeling the tree asking I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. It’s the same question every time.
Star gazing with a telescope, especially photographing the changes happening during a session, has taught me how fast I move and want things to happen. And how the movements of heavenly bodies isn’t something we can rush.
Last night I was watching the Moon occult (pass in front of) Mars. Luckily, I have a high screen-free window that is perfect for moon-gazing, so I set my telescope on its tripod on my dining room table rather than in the snow and 26 degree temperature at 8.30pm last night. I was comfortable and warm, so no excuse to rush this amazing phenomenon.
After finding the Moon and Mars, focusing the telescope, and centering the heavenly bodies, I sat witnessing this event that occurs every 26 months. Last time this happened was December 18th, 2024.
It took 30 minutes from the time I started photographing until Mars disappeared behind the Moon. I used the three viewing distances the telescope offers, reset the focus, and continually recentered the Moon as it moved across the sky. It’s not easy to see it move without a telescope, but with a fixed viewing platform, it moves rather quickly. But quickly is a relative way to describe the movement.
As I write this 10 hours later, the Moon is about to set and is dancing with Venus. That’s a long time, if you stay up and watch it move across the sky, but only one night’s travel out of a year’s waltz of cycles. So how can it feel so long for a 30 minute viewing session of Mars being occulted by the Moon?
I laugh at myself and think of the question that arises every time I stop and listen to trees. Why are humans in such a hurry? Last night I felt that question as a small impatience began to grow within me. So, I took a deep breath and relaxed as the Moon and Mars did their biennial frolic.
Dali’s melting clock painting was a great image to hold as I allowed myself to expand into astronomical time. With no excuse to hurry anything, I sat and allowed the beauty to sink into my bones and the wonder to arise from that deep place within where memories of ancestors sitting and marveling as constellations moved across their dark skies lives.
George Masa, (1885-1933) a photographer who immigrated from Japan, explored and preserved the natural beauty of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. He was fond of saying, “More walk, less talk.” I thought of him this morning as I contemplated star gazing. Maybe my new saying will be, “More gaze, less craze.”
While the beauty is what draws me to the night sky, heavenly bodies are teaching me to slow down and break free from speeding through life. Why do humans move so fast? Maybe we think we have somewhere else to be…but what if the only place we have to be is here…now.