The Vast Expanse
Stargazer: 1) a person who stargazes; 2) a daydreamer; 3) an impractical idealist; 4) any of several marine fishes of the family Uranoscopidae, having the eyes at the top of the head.
As for me, several of those definitions fit, but I’m especially quite taken with the idea of eyes on top of my head when the stars are as lovely as they were last night. After such a cloudy summer, a forecast of clear skies causes glee among stargazers…the dreamers.
It was 70 degrees at my home, at 2085 feet elevation, when I headed for Waterrock Knob, 6292 feet above sea level. After I got on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I watched the temperature start to plummet. It was 55 degrees and breezy when I arrived just before sunset. It quickly dropped to the upper 40’s and the wind started to howl on the surrounding ridge lines.
But the sky! The stars! The Milky Way!
With our country’s many struggles right now, it has never become more important for me to be outside, in Nature, and last night, under the vast expanse of the firmament. The heavens. I need to be reminded that there is an immense Universe and we are simply one tiny dot in it.
While everything socially breaks down, the stars remind me that they still move through the night sky, there is still a point of stillness in Polaris, and the Milky Way…our home galaxy…paints the night sky with its grandeur.
Last night, dressed in a micro fleece shirt, down vest, heavy down jacket, wool hat, wool socks, boots I was still chilly from the strong wind. I placed a towel on the ground and laid down while my Nikon was doing its star trail duty, programmed through the remote, to take 25 second exposures until I stopped it and the little SeeStar telescope was gathering photons from a distant nebula. Feeling the thick grass beneath the towel, I went deeper and felt the Earth, the grounding presence of our home planet. I gazed as stars shared their light. Finally, I felt at home again.
It seemed perfect to be under the cosmic sea last night as my album Cosmic Sea released yesterday. It was a perfect way to celebrate not only beauty and light, but also the work of my heart as it launched into the ether and all streaming platforms.
The Perseid Meteor event pulled me out of my little bubble and an amazing gift unfolded as I found myself immersed in the present–not in my head chasing mental rabbits down endless holes.
Friends of mine have a beach house in a relatively dark section of beach and they allow me to go there to photograph the night sky. Last evening found me standing in white, soft sand wondering if the heavy cloud cover would remain as darkness fell. “I came here to see meteors,” I exclaimed.
Maybe it was the polite way I asked for a window to see stars or just a weird beach phenomena….but a pathway to the stars opened and a bank of clouds held just east of Mars to allow viewing of the vast night sky.
After tiring of standing and craning my neck with the tripod, I adjusted the legs to a short extension and laid on the sand under the tripod. With my cable release wrapped around a tripod leg, I could lay on my back, watch stars, take long exposures and adjust the settings from a most relaxed point of view.
Taking long exposures with my camera always brings me to a place of stillness as 20, 25, 30 seconds pass. I can’t move or walk away….just have to stand (or in my case laying) in stillness as the heavens expand overhead.
There was one amazing shooting star with a bright sprinkle of star dust that trailed over the Gulf of Mexico and there were smaller ones that zipped quickly through the night sky…and that was amazing. But the real show for me was the Milky Way as it emerged from the darkening sky.
The Earth Mother supported me in my rest and opening to the endless depths of space and stars and I felt layers of worries fall away as I focused on the bigness of the Universe. Bigness….such an understatement.
By surrendering to something greater than me, I found profound peace. Allowing the depth of the Universe to touch me and awaken me, I found home again….in the sky….in myself….beyond….beyond….beyond.