aroraborealis: (shadow past)
aroraborealis ([personal profile] aroraborealis) wrote2008-02-20 09:32 pm
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I like to imagine what it might have been like to live in a time when major natural events would stand as some powerful sign from the great intentionality beyond day to day reality. The drama of a thunderstorm is so moving, even knowing that it's "merely" an electrical storm, what might it have been like when it was an unexplained event?

Tonight, though, I'm reminded that being moved happens in spite of scientific reserve. Listening to people walking by on the path -- "Oh, look at it!" "It's so beautiful." -- and standing out in the cold watching the moon looking so familiar while also foreign, both fragile and immense, I imagine I can have a foot in both places.

I love that we've been so blindly arrogant as to fly people to that distant, shimmering rock, even while I am appalled at our wasting our brilliance on such a distant dream, when just think of what that our imagination could do here, where we are.

Still, standing on my back porch in the sharp cold, listening to the quiet of night, I can't be sorry to know what we know, or that people have been there. And, still, and all, it somehow manages to be both mysterious and magical.

[identity profile] a-kosmos.livejournal.com 2008-02-21 03:48 am (UTC)(link)
It was way too cloudy here to see it. *sad* I'd been looking forward to it, too.

[identity profile] laurenhat.livejournal.com 2008-02-21 04:40 am (UTC)(link)
The knowledge of why it's happening gives me extra shivers.

I love that we've been so blindly arrogant as to fly people to that distant, shimmering rock, even while I am appalled at our wasting our brilliance on such a distant dream, when just think of what that our imagination could do here, where we are.

I can't help but continue to be in favor of sending people to the moon and Mars. But I feel like it's not totally unjustifiable... we've gotten a lot of unexpected benefits from all the science and technology work that has gone into sending people into space. Right? Er. Maybe not enough to really justify it, but... c'mon! The moon! Mars! Amazing! :D

[identity profile] laurenhat.livejournal.com 2008-02-21 04:41 am (UTC)(link)
(Just to clarify that last bit... I do know that we have not yet sent anyone to Mars. ;) )

[identity profile] lightcastle.livejournal.com 2008-02-21 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)
My favourite lunar eclipse ever involved paddling out in a boat to the middle of Lac Nominingue. I love eclipses.

[identity profile] darthsunshine.livejournal.com 2008-02-21 04:58 pm (UTC)(link)
We had intermission in the middle of aikido class so that we could all troop out to the parking lot and look at the moon at peak eclipse for a few minutes. Mysterious and magical indeed!