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God Found in Ōita!

August 19, 2022 by 31 Comments

2:30 a.m. Here we go again.

I’m up. Three days, back to back to back, at this God-awful hour. Three days, standing in bare feet on cool grass, with my camera pointed up, trying to still my hands, trying to still my arms, just trying Still everything damn it, from the shakes — and then, if that’s not enough — my eyes are tracking the moon, aka a bright, yellow blob that is spastically jumping up and down in my viewfinder. So, now I have the shakes and vertigo.  Has to be the lack of sleep. Has to be.

Rattled, I walk to the driveway, slowly, feeling my way through the dark, with jagged stones piercing the souls of my feet. Need to resurface this damn driveway. 

I lay my arms on the roof of the car, and point upward. Why 2:30 a.m., and not 1:30, or 3:30, or even 5 am, like at least 10% of Humans? God, again, only knows, if there is a God. And I’m thinking maybe there is a God, because Someone wants me up to see Something at this hour.

I look back into the viewfinder. Sh*t. This isn’t working.

I place the camera down on the roof of the car, and let my arms rest.  Sky is clear. No risk of missing the shot with cloud cover. Take a minute, re-group and go at it again.

I look up and down the street.  No one else is out in their Jockey sleep shorts, their short-sleeved, white V-Neck, lurking around in bare feet waiting for their hands to stop trembling like a frightened kitten.

I lift my palms and look. Everything appears to be normal, on the surface.

I take a moment to re-check camera settings. Then I move to the lens settings. And here I find that I somehow turned off the automatic image stabilizer. Ha! It’s not me. I just knew it couldn’t have been me.

I snug up tight to the car, the smooth steel, cool against my chest. With the ship now anchored, I lift the camera and point.  And, there, there She is, in all of her Glory.

So there is a God.

Just has to be.

Sitting @ Canon in Ōita, Japan.

Photo – Waning Gibbous Moon (57%). 2:38 a.m. August 19, 2022. 63° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.

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Pure Solitude and Tranquility

August 13, 2022 by 17 Comments

Notes:

  • DK Photo: Sturgeon Supermoon. The last Supermoon of 2022. 1:55 a.m. 66° F. August 13, 2022. Darien, CT
  • Post Title: Haruki Murakami from 1Q84: “He could well imagine what the Moon had given her: pure solitude and tranquility. That was the best thing the Moon could give a person.”
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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.

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Walking. With air kisses in the palm of the hand.

July 23, 2022 by 39 Comments

3:30 a.m. 809 consecutive (almost) days on my daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. 809 days, like in a row.

Here we go. (Again)

I walk.

Even for me, today’s early. Too early.  The normal shot-clock is exactly 1 hour prior to scheduled sunrise.  And we jumped the gun.  Mistake was checking Dark Sky App before bed.  Clear skies = clear shot at a crescent moon. So, there we were, 3:45 a.m., my date with camera and Luna.

I take a few shots and walk.

Rebecca Solnit in her book Wanderlust: A History of Walking talks about walking as the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart…her thoughts were in themselves a form of locomotion. I thought about all this for a moment.  Well, I’m certainly breathing, and the heart is beating, but that’s about it. My a** is dragging. Rhythm? Locomotion? Nothing happening here.

I walk.

In the past month, there have been 3 incidences. A serendipitous meeting of man and a white-tailed deer popping out from behind a tree. Jesus, Bambi, how about a little heads up? I near crapped myself.

The second event earlier this week, I’m looking out for him, and, he’s waiting for me. He takes a few steps onto the shoreline, and then spins, once and then twice in the soft sand, and turns to stare at me.  See? Be happy! I watch this in disbelief. Did that really happen? Lori, what’s the damn word. App…? Appart..? Aprit…?  He prances down the shoreline, legs on giant steel springs, and disappears. [Read more…]

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TGIF: I see the bad moon a-rising

April 15, 2022 by 36 Comments

Notes:

  • Post Title: “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
  • DK Photo: Moon. Waxing Gibbous Phase (93%). 52° F. 4:00 a.m. April 15, 2022.
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I’ve run away but I find the moon everywhere I go

March 27, 2022 by 27 Comments

I’ve been getting text messages from the moon. A note flashes on my phone, asking if the moon can track my location, and I consent.

I have moved to a new city but the moon is following me around. It texts to tell me when it will be out. Through the windows, there is just a parallelogram of sky at the top of the courtyard, only a small space to catch the passing moon on certain clear nights…

The app uses my location to tell me the moon’s phase, direction, distance at all times. Right now, the moon is 384,012 miles away from my hand, which is holding my phone close to my heart, as I sit at the table in the narrow kitchen of this flat with tall windows in an old-style apartment block, stinging nettles by the front door. I’m just home from work, vibrating with tiredness. The moon is waxing gibbous and is 25.2 degrees above the horizon, almost due east. It rose just after midday and will set around 3 a.m…

The internet is hectic and I go to the moon to relax, opening new browser tabs for the moon’s Wikipedia page and Google Maps of its surface. I follow new lunar developments from NASA. I learn that the moon was probably once part of the earth, sheared off by an asteroid. B, who moved from Scotland to Tasmania, tells me that there is a different moon in the southern hemisphere: it waxes and wanes in the opposite direction. I learn that the moon is slowing down the earth’s rotation. The moon is holding on to us…

I’ve run away but I find the moon everywhere I go…

The lunar cycles are almost all I have in my diary for the year. My future is blank but I know what the moon will be doing…

People in this town can’t commit to anything, but the moon is always orbiting and the months pass relentlessly. I don’t speak the language but I know ‘der Mond’. My attachment to the moon grew during the years I’ve been lonely and so did the moon’s attachment to me. The moon, I tell B, is my boyfriend.

— Amy Liptrot, from her Prologue titled “February Hunger Moon” in The Instant (Canongate Books, March 3, 2022)

Notes:

  • Waning Crescent Moon (25%). DK @ Cove Island Park, 37° F. 5:33 a.m. Sunday, March 27, 2022. More Photos from this morning here.
  • Book Review of “The Instant” in The Guardian
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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.

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Walking. What you hold, holds you. (Again)

November 20, 2021 by 34 Comments


5:45 a.m, and I’m out the door. Dark Sky app says 36° F, feels like 34°, and I call bullsh*t on that. No chance. My finger tips are tingling, a mere handful of steps into my daybreak walk.

But I’m ready. Come and get some of This.  Long johns, wool socks, double lined sweatpants, hoody, tuk (tuuuuuuk), a winter coat sewn by one of Dale’s relatives in Northern Quebec, and Norwegian Merino wool gloves. Because Norwegian’s know cold. And, caution flags are flying, need to avoid public areas looking like this, a threat, and get cut down by an AR-15.

What’s good about Cold?  It keeps the Chatty’s out of the park. And today, even the regulars are absent. It’s me, and the Herons, Queen’s Guards, stoic, standing in ice cold water, winds gusting off Long Island Sound.  Just the way we like it.

94 snaps taken this morning, and that one above has stuck. 92 better shots, but this one won’t let go. It’s the Full moon watching me traipse around the muck in low tide. Robbins: “She wondered how the moon, two hundred and thirty-nine thousand miles above…could affect her as profoundly as it did…Yet, as any half-awake materialist knows, that which you hold holds you.” [Read more…]

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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.

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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…]

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5:00 P.M. Bell! S-1 & S-2

September 24, 2021 by 26 Comments

S-1 (Sully) and S-2 (Shroooooommmmm aka Giant Puffball Mushroom @ 1 week’s growth). (DK Photo @ 2:30 p.m. today).  Initial post on our Giant Puffball here.

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Moon 1 or Moon 2 (Calvatia gigantea)?

September 21, 2021 by 25 Comments

Moon 1: Waning Gibbous Moon @ 6:32 a.m. today @ Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT

Moon 2: Giant Puffball Mushroom. A mere 4 days of growth.  And note the satellite mini puffball moon circling Mama in front of it.  (Photo: 7:04 A.M. this morning.)

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Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

September 20, 2021 by 32 Comments

Experience one beautiful thing a day. However small. However trivial. Read a poem. Play a favorite song. Laugh with a friend. Gaze at the sky just before the sun’s final tumble toward night. Watch a classic movie. Eat a slice of lemon drizzle cake. Whatever. Just give yourself one simple reminder that the world is full of wonders. Even if we are at a point in life where we can’t appreciate things, it sometimes helps to remember there are things in this world to enjoy, when we are ready.

—  Matt Haig, with “One Beautiful Thing” in “The Comfort Book” (Penguin Life, July 6, 2021)

Notes:

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Crescent Moon 2

September 12, 2021 by 23 Comments

And out the windows the sky was still dimming, darkening, the vast earth turning slowly on its axis… Outside, astronomical twilight. Crescent moon hanging low over the dark water. Tide returning now with a faint repeating rush over the sand. Another place, another time.

— Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 7, 2021)

Notes:

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that which you hold holds you

September 11, 2021 by 30 Comments

She wondered how the moon, two hundred and thirty-nine thousand miles above the roof, could affect her as profoundly as it did. Being four times larger than the moon, the earth appeared to dominate. Caught in the earth’s gravitational web, the moon moved around the earth and could never get away. Yet, as any half-awake materialist well knows, that which you hold holds you. Neither could the earth escape the moon.

—  Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker: A Novel (Bantam; June 17, 2003)

 

DK with Crescent Moon. Waxing Crescent Phase. 7:38 pm, September 11, 2021. 71° F. (@dkct25 on Instagram)

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Ring of Fire

June 10, 2021 by 48 Comments

“Ring of Fire” Solar Eclipse. DK @ Daybreak. 5:46 am, June 10, 2021. 70° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

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Saturday Morning

June 5, 2021 by 30 Comments

DK @ Daybreak: 4:38, 4:48 & 4:59 am, June 5, 2021. 62° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

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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:

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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

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Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

February 8, 2021 by 22 Comments

—  Mary Oliver, from “Consequences”, Dream Work

Notes:

  • Quote Source: WeltenWellen.
  • Photo: DK, Daybreak. 6:36 am Jan 29, 2021. 13° F, feels like minus 4° F, wind gusts up to 38 mph. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
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