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| Screenshot from planetary alignment beginning of June. |
It's a natural phenom that is happening at dawn right now. It is an alignment of the planets.
Like a string of festive lights strung across the early morning sky, the planets (and moon for now) are revealing an astronomical message for those still living.
The theme song we have been hearing in our heads is Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, from the movie Hair.
A conjunction is when three planets line up, and they are common. An alignment is a rarer humongously beautiful bit of nature. One as is occurring now last happened in 2003 and won't happen again until 2040.
Will I even be around in 2040? Will anyone?
The alignment might get more press except that humanity has been busy looking down at its bumbling feet for a long time now.
I had a 10 year old primary school student that was looking up, and thinking about it as well. He came to me one day with a heavy existential problem. Yes, children can have those, too.
This philosophical little person was troubled to tears. Why?
"I don't even know if space ends or not!" he cried in despair.
He was so perplexed that he gave up his recess (many student's favourite part of school) to bring me this little nugget of human experience. It is one I will never forget.
Whether space ends, or not, it is the planets that are the stars in the morning sky right now.
We have been watching this dawn show since the beginning of June. The screenshot above is from then. The shot below is what it looked like last night.
Our bedroom is situated so that we can see the horizon and a bit of the sky on clear nights. From bed.
We live in a rural area close to a designated Dark Sky region, and the nightly light show is mind-boggling on any cloudless night, but especially so now.
So. Many. Stars. Space is so... vast. And me? So... teeny, tiny. A speck on a speck on a speck.
I wish I could talk to that young philosopher today.
"Humanity", I would say, "should be looking up at the night sky to help put our puny, solvable problems into perspective.
The Universe is a big, beautiful (infinite?) place. Why think so petty, limited, and small?"
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| Screenshot from planetary alignment June 25, 2022. |
I love your outlook. I have started telling people who are so upset about how the pandemic has upset their plans and ruined their lives that, as I see it, I am only one in (almost) eight billion and also living in one of the most privileged places in the world, so my little problems are really just that - little, tiny, miniscule drops in the bucket of travails. Learning the art of putting things into perspective is so important to being happy and content.
ReplyDeleteI agree - although the pandemic has wrecked a lot of things, we still have it pretty good here for the most part.
Delete- Gregg
We got to travel recently to west Texas, to Big Bend National Park. The McDonald Observatory is in Fort Davis, which is about two hours north. We attended one of their star parties and it was amazing. The true night sky is both overwhelming and stunningly beautiful. I could stare at it for hours and hours. It makes me grateful to be on earth, and sad that we have to go to special locations to see our stars. -Erin
ReplyDeleteStar watching helps me put life into perspective. Plus it is, as you say, "stunningly beautiful".
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