hello friends,
i started writing a post for instagram this morning, and i just kept writing, and it was too long for instagram, and i had more thoughts to process, so here. here it comes. in my letter to you.
this morning, i looked out my window at the moon and saw that jupiter and the moon had hung out together all night, jupiter up there, off to the moon's eleven o'clock.
i thought about the beautiful {just-barely-waning} mostly-full moon as i showered this morning. and at some point in those ten or so minutes, the positions of the moon and jupiter shifted, and i snapped a quick picture of the moon in my western sky with jupiter a bit farther away and to the moon's three o'clock. i guess they are getting ready for wherever it is they both go for the day. for daytime here, in this place that i inhabit.
yesterday evening, i watched the earth turn into the path of the moon, watched the moon rise with jupiter there, just above and to the left. both so bright in the deep indigo of the night sky. as i walked with ben and chaco, the earth continued its turn into the rising of the moon.
i thought about the paths of the heavenly bodies. i thought about where i see the moon and jupiter, about how we talk about moon-rise and sun-rise, moon-set and sunset, but really, our earth is turning as the sun stays in the spot it has held for always. i thought about describing where i see the moon from my home here on the middle of north america in the northern hemisphere. i tried to remember when i really started thinking about the earth turning vs. the sun moving, when i really made my brain think that the sun stays, we turn, and added to that the awareness that the moon is moving around the earth, and the stars that we see are visible differently through the changing of the seasons as the earth's tilt changes. this exercise has changed my mindset in ways that i don't think i even fully understand.
you, friends, were also on my mind. i thought about how connections made through this blog and my flickr and instgram spaces have given me friends all around the world. i have friends who are coming to the end of summer as i am coming to the end of winter. i have friends who are already well into their thursdays while i am finishing up my wednesday. i have friends who see the stars in a different part of their sky and even some stars that i don't see.
yet we are all on this one beautiful earth. we are all under the same sky, the same moon, the same sun, though we see different moon rises, different sunsets, different paths of the stars.
and for the few people that i am blessed to know, that i am blessed to brush against, to share moments and words and images with, there are billions more people on this planet. people who are made of the same dust and breath i am made of. people who need kindness and love just as much, or even more, than i do. people who live under the same beauty of sun, moon and stars.
all of this gives me a broad and breathless perspective on my tiny place in this world; makes me know that i must spread kindness and goodness always, into all the sunlit and moonlit and starlit corners i am granted.
spread kindness and goodness, my friends. and enjoy the beauty of the turning of this terrestrial ball in the vastness of sparkling space.
with so much love, e