Notes:
You will say Fake! I will say No!
August 12, 2022 by 38 Comments
DK Photo: Flying to the Moon. 5:36 a.m. 71° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More luna pictures here.
Walking. In Strawberries.
June 16, 2022 by 31 Comments
4:23 a.m., or so. Yesterday morning.
It’s been 772 consecutive (almost) days on my daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.
And, I’m walking.
This is after moon shots at 1:43 am, 3:35 am, and now – – all posted yesterday in Let us taste the Strawberry Moon. Why, am I still up? Because Christie told me about the Strawberry Moon. And when my WordPress friends tell me to do something, I do it. So I chased her.
Who’s Christie? Mimi from her post last night: “There are people who I have followed (or who have followed me) on WordPress for years. Never met them, never spoke to them, and would likely not recognize them if we passed on the street. And yet, they are my friends…We commiserate in comment sections, check in with each other on email, rail at times, commiserate other times and occasionally marvel at our common ground. Ground that we walk in figurative step, covering invisible miles through the ether, yet as firm under my feet as the street. There is wonder in this.”
There is wonder in this. I’m nodding my head in agreement. Yet another awesome Human who can put into words, what I can’t, and so beautifully.
I walk. Bleary-eyed. Bone tired. Exhaustion fully set in.
I can see her out of the corner of my eye. She’s Giant, my Strawberry Moon, hovering, and whisper quiet as she hangs overhead, illuminating the earth in her warm glow. All, I’m sure, to protect me from taking a header as I make my way to the North point of the park.
I walk.
I twist my Air Pod snugly into my right ear, and then my left. I cue up a Chill playlist, randomly selected by another giant fruit, Apple.
I walk. My feet are moving under their own propulsion, on the same track that I have now passed hundreds of times. “Siri, turn up the volume.” Henry Green in “Shift” …I feel movements under my skin…” [Read more…]
Let us taste the Strawberry Moon
June 15, 2022 by 18 Comments
Notes:
- Photo: DK of Strawberry Moon. 100% illumination. #1 – 1:43 a.m. from backyard in Darien. #2: 4:27 a.m. Cove Island Park. And then on cue, pink sky rolled in at 5:19 am @ Cove Island Park. More on background of Strawberry Moon here. Thank you Christie for the heads up on tonight’s moon show. (And keeping me up at this ungodly hour!)
- Post Title from Poem by Lorna: “Let us taste the Strawberry Moon / Wrap us in the light of / The pink dawn-at-night moon / Let’s pretend that June’s perfection / Never ends / That the strawberries and cream of June / Will serve to mend / And to our troubled thoughts / A peace lend.
SUPER MOON!
May 16, 2022 by 31 Comments
Eric Kanigan photographs of “Super Flower Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse” on May 15, 2022 @ following time intervals: 10:34 pm, 10:40, 10:46, 10:56, 11:00, 11:07, 11:14, 11:19, 11:34 pm. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. (Eric Kanigan Photography)
54 minutes. Bada-Bing-Bada…
February 15, 2022 by 31 Comments
DK @ Daybreak @ Cove Island Park. Feb 15, 2022. 13° F, feels like 4° F. Full Moon @ 6:09 a.m. Sunrise @ 7:03 a.m. More photos from this morning here.
Beaver Moon
November 19, 2021 by 25 Comments
Beaver Moon. 4:45 & 5:04 am, November 15, 2021. 43° F, feels like 36° F. Gusty. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
The longest partial lunar eclipse in 580 years. Thank you Lori for tuning me in.
like a cold gem against dark velvet…
November 16, 2021 by 34 Comments
There was a full moon outside and it was the only peaceful thing they had seen all day.
It shone with an impassive beauty, like a cold gem against dark velvet, not at all interested in the human pain down below.
— Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel (Bloomsbury Publishing; 1st edition (November 2, 2021)
Photos: DK’s Moon shots @ 5:45 pm today from backyard.
Walking. With Tu Fu.
October 23, 2021 by 16 Comments
53° F. 5:59 a.m. Thursday, October 21st.
Cove Island Park walk @ daybreak.
534 (almost) consecutive mornings. Like in a row.
I walk. Sort of.
One hour before sunrise. Deep in the Twilight Zone.
When One just can’t leave well enough alone, One pays. Advil PM & Tylenol PM have worked for 10+ years. Man Child thinks he could save a few bucks with Amazon’s private label “Basic Care Sleep Aid” tablets. Teeny, tiny, blue egg shell pills. I mean tiny. How much damage can they possibly do?
And so here we are.
Think of your first step after exiting the Salt & Pepper Shaker @ Six Flags Great Adventure.
But it’s a full 2 hours later.
World is spinning.
Stomach begs Mercy!
Each.Step.Must.Be.Deliberate.
Easy does it DK. Easy does it.
The head and the body not of this earth. Not on this earth. [Read more…]
Spring Night
March 28, 2021 by 21 Comments
The few minutes of a Spring night are worth ten thousand pieces of gold.
The perfume of the flowers is so pure.
The shadows of the moon are so black.
— Su Dongpo, (1037-1101) from “Spring Night” in “One Hundred Poems from the Chinese.” Trans. Kenneth Rexroth.
Notes:
- Photo by DK: Mar 28 2020. 2:34 A.M. 46° F. Backyard.
- Poem: Thank you Beth @ (via Alive on All Channels)
Breathe into me
February 28, 2021 by 27 Comments
At night I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine.
Breathe into me.
— Rumi, excerpt of Some Kiss We Want (tr. by Coleman Barks)
Photo: DK @ Rowayton Beach, Norwalk, CT. 7:30 to 7:45 PM. 43° F. Saturday Feb 27, 2020
Cold Moon
December 28, 2020 by 28 Comments
“The moonlight through the windshield. No one talks.”
~ Jenny Offill, Weather: A Novel (Knopf, February 11, 2020)
Notes:
- Photo: DK. 6:35 p.m. Dec 28, 2020
- “December’s Cold Moon reaches peak illumination on Tuesday, December 29, 2020, at 10:30 P.M. EST. Why is it called the Cold Moon? The Moon names we use in The Old Farmer’s Almanac come from Native American, Colonial American, or other traditional sources passed down through generations. A variety of Native American societies traditionally used the monthly Moons and nature’s corresponding signs as a calendar to track the seasons. Today, December’s full Moon is most commonly known as the Cold Moon—a Mohawk name that conveys the frigid conditions of this time of year, when cold weather truly begins to grip us. Other names that allude to the cold and snow include Drift Clearing Moon (Cree), Frost Exploding Trees Moon (Cree), Moon of the Popping Trees (Oglala), Hoar Frost Moon (Cree), Snow Moon (Haida, Cherokee), and Winter Maker Moon (Western Abenaki). From The Old Farmer’s Almanac: “Full Moon For December 2020“.
It’s been a long day
November 12, 2019 by 44 Comments
Phoenix, AZ.
Visiting Brother.
Time: Now.
I was inspired by the full Moon over the Camelback Mountains the night before.
I was further inspired by a Moon quote from a Murakami book that I came across this morning.
So much inspiration is grist for a blog post. As the bio suggests, if it moves me, it goes up. No other criteria required. Full stop.
Tell my Brother that I’m going out to take some shots of the Moon with my Smartphone. How hard can it possibly be, right?
I step outside.
I walk a block looking in all directions.
Then I walk a second block. It was a cloudless day in Phoenix. How hard can it be? Pretty damn hard without the Moon.
I get in car. I drive 5 miles east. Why East? Because the Sun Rises in the East. So Moon must be East. Does this make any sense? It gets Dark, the Moon is there. Does it rise at all?
I could have Googled it before I left (“Does the Moon Rise? “What time does the Moon rise in Phoenix today?”)
But, WTH would I do that for?
In 50+ years, it has never dawned on me that the Moon wouldn’t be there waiting for me when it was dark on a cloudless night.
I drive back. Wow. Empty handed. Embarrassing and beyond.
“What took so long?”
“I couldn’t find the Moon?”
“You’ve got to be kidding?’
“No Moon.”
“OK Smart a**. Does the Moon rise or is it just there?”
He has no clue either. Same root, same stock. Makes sense.
He’s watching me write this Post. He’s staring, wondering: “You aren’t really going to tell the world that you don’t know Jack about the Moon are you?”
Apparently I’m going to do exactly that. Yep.
I’m connected to my own reality here.
“We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.”
~ Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
Notes:
- Photo: Not Mine. Phoenix, AZ. Moon last night (Nov 11, 2019). Amazing shot by Beverly Thornburgh.
- Quote via The Vale of Soul Making
- Related Posts: It’s been a long day
How many moons have I been too busy to notice?
October 15, 2019 by 18 Comments
Notes:
- Photograph of Hunter’s Moon: By Eric Kanigan, from our front yard on October 14, 2019
- Inspired by: “How many moons have I been too busy to notice? Full moons, half moons, quarter moons facing those thousands of suns, watching them bringing the years up, one piece at a time. Even the dark phases of moon after moon, gray stoppers plugged into a starry sky, letting a little light leak out around the edges. By my reckoning, almost a thousand full moons have passed above me know, and I have been too busy and self-absorbed to be thankful for more than a few, though month after month they have patiently laid out my shadow, that velvety cloak that in the moonlit evenings waits for me.” ~ Ted Kooser, January. The Wheeling Year: A Poet’s Field Book (UNP – Nebraska, 2014).
Look now. Right now. 30 minutes left, and then not again for 30 years…
September 13, 2019 by 28 Comments
Notes:
- By Patty Maher, To The Moon. On Friday the 13th Full Moon: a Rare Event You Won’t See Again Until 2049
- Inspired by: “We need our quietest hours to hear Earth turning night into day – to feel it gather its waters against the pull of the moon…” By Dan Gerber, from “Particles”
Miracle. All of it.
July 11, 2017 by 16 Comments
Notes:
- This photo from today’s paper brought back memories. I’ve had the good fortunate of being here. Seeing this. Still takes my breath away.
- Photo Source: Full moon rises over the ancient temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion outside of Athens on Sunday. (Louisa Gouliamaki, Agency France-Presse, July 10, 2017, wsj.com)
- Related Post: Sunday Morning. Listen deeply as you walk. There’s light everywhere, especially in Greece.
- Related Posts: Miracle. All of it.
Breathe into me
November 29, 2016 by 24 Comments
At night I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine.
Breathe into me.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi, excerpt from “Some Kiss We Want” in A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings by Coleman Barks
Photo of full moon over Peyto Lake by Cath Simard. Peyto Lake is a glacier-fed lake in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Don’t miss her other shots of Banff here.
SuperMoon
November 14, 2016 by 19 Comments
“On Monday, 14 November, the moon will be the biggest and brightest it has been in more than 60 years. So long as the sky is clear of clouds, it should be a great time to get outside and gaze at it or take some photos…At 8:09PM GMT, the moon will pass by the Earth at a distance of 356,511km – the closest it has passed the Earth since 1948. As it does so, it will be a full moon, making it a particularly big supermoon. Supermooons are roughly 30% larger in area and 30% brighter than the smallest full moons – full moons that happen when the moon is at its furthest distance from Earth: at “apogee”. In terms of diameter – the width of the moon – it will be about 14% wider than the smallest full moons. (Read more at The Guardian: Supermoon science: November 2016 moon biggest and brightest in 60 years)
Art: Dark Hall Mansion
If you live to be very old, you may see twelve hundred full moons
October 16, 2016 by 21 Comments
If you live to be very old, you may see twelve hundred full moons. Some come in winter and you trudge out into the deep snow to stand beneath their glow. Others come to you in the city and you take an elevator up to the roof of the highest building and set out a couple of folding chairs to watch it glide across the sky. Or the moon finds you along a foreign shore and you paddle out in some dingy and scoop its reflection from the waters and drink it down. The moons of your old age are the most potent but seem few and far between. They make their way into your marrow and teach it how to hum. When your final moon arrives, it’s as if youth has come back to you. Though instead of flaunting its yellow hat, now it’s dressed in black.
~ David Shumate, “An Inventory of Moons” from Kimonos in the Closet
Notes:
- Photo: npr.org – Look Up — The Moon Is Going To Be Amazing This Weekend. A full moon rises behind Lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center in September in New York City. Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
- Poem: Thank you Whiskey River
We still have work ahead, as long as we can see.
August 20, 2015 by 14 Comments
Like mine, the moon’s eyelid is droopy.
It too is old and has been around.
We pass our time together without saying a word,
like brothers scything weeds long after dark.
His scythe has caught a little light,
but mine has not.
We still have work ahead, as long as we can see.
~ Ted Kooser, “August.” The Wheeling Year: A Poet’s Field Book
Photo: r2–d2
Live & Learn 