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.
