SubscribeOctober 12th, 2009
Plants, moon, philosophy and poetry
I’ve been gardening interspersed with reading Searle’s “Minds, Brains, and Programs,” poems randomly selected from Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest and Lakoff and Johnson’s Philosophy in the Flesh. All the while I have been deeply conscious of the fact that the moon has been crossing the day-sky unseen.
The moon rose sometime around midnight (it is at last quarter) and is, as I sit here writing, close to setting. It will set before dark, and since I have been poorly this weekend, it was daylight before I woke and so, for this day, although I can feel the tidal pull of the moon on my awareness, I have not seen it for at least two days now.
I feel better today, having slept the lion’s share of two days and when I went out this morning for tea, the garden presented itself as a “must do.” Some plants are still strong, even though the nights have been a bit frosty, but others have long since died back. The tomatoes, cilantro, the lupins, the sweetgrass and the poppies have become dried letters from summer. When I pulled the dead tomatoe branches today, there was a faint smell left, and I even found one small orange tomatoe left clinging to a wizened branch. The poppies dried to leave architecturally beautiful seed pods on elegant stems. I have saved those and put them dry into a ceramic pot outside my door. On dark moon next I’ll cut back the lupin pods and place them there along with the poppies.
The moon will be in Cancer at the moment, sinking to the horizon, just north of west. That’s how it feels, that the moon in Cancer is sinking to the west, but of course what is really happening is that I, on a spinning earth, am backing away as I stand and look to where I know the moon to be – that as I spin backwards, the edge of the earth is rising up and hiding constellation after constellation, until finally, it will hide a moon already hidden.
What has that to do with Searle and poetry? More on that after I go pull the remaining leeks.
October 4th, 2009
Urban esbat
No matter where we are, no matter what we can see, or how we live, for some time each month we stand between the sun and the moon.
Behind me:
In front of me:
October 3rd, 2009
The moon in daytime
As I sit here writing, the sky is bright. If I were to go out to a park where I had a good view of the southern and eastern sky I, if the sun’s light were to suddenly blip off, I could see Mars nearly directly overhead coasting through Gemini. If I looked just a little south of east and 10 or 15 degrees up from the horizon I would Venus up front and Mercury and Saturn chasing her tail. They’s all be coming up on Leo.
If I were in Buenos Aires the three would be still far behind Mars but I would need to look north and they would be at about 45 degrees up from the horizon and Mars would be setting about now. In the northern hemisphere but on the opposite side of the world where at 9am this morning for me (it will be 9pm tonight for them), Mars and the others are not in their sky but Jupiter is (in Capricorn) and the moon is climbing in the southeastern sky (in Pisces). In fact where they would look in the sky to see the moon, is almost exactly where I would look to see the sun (in Virgo).
Is that wonderful to think about! There is so much more than we can see and even with what we can see, so many ways to see it.
So about 17:00 for me the sun will have moved low across the southern sky; Venus, Mercury and Saturn will be close to setting and Jupiter (still in Capricorn of course) will be rising. By 18:30 the sun will be just slipping down onto the horizon just south of west (in Virgo) and the moon (in Pisces) will be just sliding up over the horizon just north of east. At the same time, but in Aktjubinsk (Kazakstan), the moon will be starting to set. And at 0730 this morning while in my bit of the sky the sun was just rising and the moon had just set, in their sky it was getting dark and moon was just rising.
And for me, right now, the moon? As of 11:00 my time the moon is directly opposite (more or less) the sun. What that means is that while the moon is for me invisible and below the horizon, it is really climbing the sky above the Caspian Sea at Aktau. In fact, where the sun is for me, for them it is the moon.
It makes my head reel.
October 1st, 2009
Nearly full moon
You know the thing I miss most about living in a city as big as Vancouver? It’s the moon. Oh, of course I can still see it but it doesn’t sit on my head in the way it does in places where I can see horizon to horizon without interruption and where at night, it is actually dark.
The moon set not that long ago, in the west, south west – about 04:30. The thing is that I couldn’t see it, the rise of the city stood between me and the moon. It will rise an hour and a bit before sunset, not long after I get out of work, just a bit south of due east. It’s almost full but I won’t see it crest the edge of the earth.
There’s a wedge of time, when the moon surfs the deep southern sky, sometime after about 21:00 that I could go out to the park and watch, but by then I need to be preparing for the next work day.
I’m not really complaining, although I do miss the full moons when, sitting in my camp chair with hot tea and a blanket, I could watch the orange bulge of the moon’s head break over the horizon, and if nothing was required of me the next day, stay sitting, watching as she makes her path across the constellations.
Now for that to happen I have to plan a vacation. Still, now I can afford a vacation. Maybe I should think about getting out on a boat. For sure I would be able to see horizon to horizon out on the sea.
The picture is of a waxing crescent from late summer, but it gives you the idea of why glimpses is all I get at the moment.
