Tag: Simone Lipscomb
Great Night to Be Alive

Great Night to Be Alive

By |

As I laid on Earth, looking at the vast sky filled with stars, I realized it was the first time in my star gazing outings over the past year that I wasn’t monitoring equipment. I was taking in the beauty without distractions. Literally…breathing in the starlight, exhaling into Earth. Breathing in the sparkling meteors, exhaling gratitude into Earth. I was grateful my equipment was safely stowed so I could be present with life.

It was also the first night I had used only one piece of equipment. Usually, I have the SeeStar telescope imaging some galaxy or star cluster, my camera taking star trail images, and my iPhone on a little tripod taking images. All of this while ‘enjoying’ the beauty. And I absolutely love creating images…that’s my joy. But last night, I was trying a new piece of equipment I bought many months ago but hadn’t had an opportunity to use due to heavy cloud cover for so many months and then I’d forgotten how to assemble it and didn’t want to bother. 

But I bothered last night and I’m in awe of what adding a star tracker can do to increase exposure time for astrophotography. And let me just say this: I love to play with camera gear…under starlight, underwater, with waterfalls, forests, wildlife. I simply love to play. With cameras. And light. And shapes. And sparkly shiny beings light years away. But sometimes it’s magical to remember why I am so passionate about photography and just be bathed in the beauty I’m trying to capture and share.

Three of us gathered for the Leonid meteor shower, for fast-moving meteors and fireballs, debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Our viewing location is generally a madhouse of car lights but last night, we had it almost to ourselves. Peaceful, calm, cold and one fireball that was so amazing I yelled, Bravo!!, after its sparkling self evaporated above our heads. There were others…one incredibly fast faint one, other smaller ones, and one I didn’t see with my eyes but my camera captured it!

Even though there were clouds for a few hours, they added to the beauty of the images. I saw the clouds clearing, but it was getting colder and even with my cocoon of warm clothes, I knew my limit was approaching. As soon as I began disassembling the imaging equipment, the clouds finally gave way. I think their hanging around was my cue to put it all away and lay on Earth for grounding and communion with our planet and to open myself to the beauty of the firmament without distractions…except for the tingle moving up my spine from the cat call…which I swear was a mountain lion’s chirping call. We all heard it so it wasn’t my imagination. (It IS possible at the 5720 foot ‘remote’ location on the parkway…there have been paw print casts made from biologists years ago nearby…and it was not a bobcat).

As I was driving home, down the Blue Ridge Parkway, and then winding down Soco Road toward Cherokee, I thought…This was a great night to be alive! Stars, meteors, mountains…mountain lion? Just WOW!
At Home in the Stars

At Home in the Stars

By |

I used to say I felt more at home underwater than on dry land. Since I haven’t been diving in years, I now say I feel more at home under stars, gazing into the heavens, than I do during daylight hours wandering the planet. Both underwater places and the night sky are experiences of vast space.

Perhaps it’s the expansion of space that calms me. It is those times when I can expand my experience of life into the Infinite that call me into the cold nights of the mountains…where I can unfold and feel the touch of the Universe within my heart and know the immensity of my own soul and how it is part of Oneness.
Awe

Awe

By |

There’s a book written on awe and how good it is for us to experience it. Tonight, I left the comfort and warmth of my bed after 10pm because I checked the KP index and it was 9…which is very high and is good news for aurora lovers. I put on snow pants, my big down jacket and grabbed my iPhone. I peeked outside and sure enough, there was a faint red glow. So I grabbed my tripod and got a couple nice shots and realized I had to go into the woods with open fields with north facing views. And am I EVER glad I did.

It’s not easy to go out in below freezing temperatures, but to chase dancing colors in the sky, I had to take the chance.

I went to some fields I know on public land and parked beside the road in three different locations and got some great foreground for variety and saw pillars of light as the color and shape changed from moment-to-moment. Elk were EVERYWHERE at the park entrance which added to the magic but made navigation through the herd quite interesting.

No need to carry on and on about the experience. Let me simply say it was worth spending two hours in below freezing temperatures to witness this and capture the beauty…in some small way.

Sometimes it’s so worth leaving my comfort zone to go explore beauty. I highly recommend it.
The Door is Open

The Door is Open

By |

My hound often sits outside the pet door and barks to come inside….when the door has the solid panel removed. I’ll say, “Come on Vernon, the door is open!” And after a few minutes of thought, or something akin to thought, he comes through and climbs into his purple leather recliner. 

This morning, one of my cats did Vernon’s version of ‘the door is locked and I can’t get in.’ So I told her, “The door is open!” And she came inside.

This was an unusual behavior as Tawanda is super-smart (not saying Vernon isn’t super-smart…his nose is beyond intelligent). Any time something unusual happens, I stop and pay attention. Especially after the contemplation I had this morning.

I kept hearing: The door is open. Walk through! So I wrote it down and put the paper beside my computer. As I begin the work day, the paper kept staring at me and I remembered a story I shared at a book event this weekend.

I was hiking with a friend up Alum Cave trail to LeConte Lodge. There is a point where the trail flattens out after nearly five miles of climbing. The higher altitude forest opens up and it’s pure magic. Thick carpets of green moss, the smell of balsam fir, beautiful spruce and fir trees create a wonderland of beauty. On our way back from the lodge, I stopped and pulled out a flute and stood in the forest and said… ‘this is for you…thank you.’ 

As I played the melody, I felt my heart open and then a rush of energy move through me that brought me to tears. There was such connection with the forest. I felt it on a cellular level. 

As we hiked down, I contemplated the experience and realized the only thing keeping us from being in such profound harmony with life is ourselves. The forest is always there…open, strong, beautiful. We simply have to open our hearts to feel that Oneness.

In the book event with my friend and writer, Thomas Rain Crowe, I described the forest and flute moment and how I realized that the only thing keeping us from experiencing Oneness was ourselves. And the ‘fix’ is to open our hearts. 

To be in Oneness, to feel love and connection, we simply have to open ourselves. We’ve spent years building walls of protection and it was smart to do that when we were kids and trying to grow up and find our way. But as adults, those walls keep us from connecting. We can become addicted to adding to and stabilizing those walls, reinforcing them, to keep ourselves safe. But then, our world becomes smaller and scarier because we’re repeating our fears over and over. The way out of that fear cycle is to find ways to open again. For me, it’s with animals and forests…rivers, the night sky. When I dare to open my heart and listen to the forest, the rivers, wild animals and my own four-legged kiddos, I find I hear again and again, “The Door is open! Walk through!”

—

Misery is found in our self-created prison. 

We sit inside the cell and carve days into walls of stone

As the rusted, open door of iron bars silently waits.

A beam of light illuminates the opening

And we marvel at the beauty of it sparkling 

In the dungeon of our shadows.

It whispers, The Door is open. Walk through.

By the magic of grace, we walk through the open door

Of our heart and know freedom.

The Door is open. Walk through!
Star Dust

Star Dust

By |

Stardust drifted down and I’m pretty sure I felt it lightly kiss my cheeks as I stood face-to- pre-dawn-sky with a wild look that only a blue-white meteor streaking across the sky gives me. My scream of delight echoed down the mountain and across the valley. A coyote might have howled in answer.

The massive fireball seemed to slow time and even now, as I sit pondering it, the meteor seems suspended in space and time. Forever etched in my mind, I see it.

C-2025 A6
M 42
C-2025 R2

I returned from Waterrock Knob last evening of imaging the comets…two of them…and visiting with other night sky lovers. I didn’t expect to awaken so early, but meteors call. And the Orion Nebula…I’ve missed it. A lot. It’s a part of my life since it shared some of its mystery last winter. It felt like a dear friend returning to my life.

We’ve had so many cloudy nights for months, with only one or two mostly clear nights. Last night’s viewing was near perfection with no moon, clear skies, two comets, a meteor shower…a star gazer’s dream.

Stars open me to the vastness of Infinity and are a key to unlocking my inner infinity. Being under their blanket of swirling, twirling light grounds me in the present moment and reminds me that human problems and politics and all of that are simply a tiny blip in time  and space. Madmen leave a mark, but a very tiny and insignificant one in the eons of existence. May I remember this truth.

When weather and celestial events come together like they did last night and this morning, I find my inner constellations glowing bright again and my heart beating strong with the beauty of the Universe.