universe Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Stars – Photo: L. Weikel

Fair Warning

After writing 977 consecutive posts for public consumption, I notice a couple idiosyncracies about myself. For instance, I realize I just might have a few ‘go-to’ topics that consistently pique my interest. With this in mind, I consider it a service that I provide you with ‘fair warning’ this evening of the approach of an event that’s one of my favorite experiences of the summer – every summer.

The Perseids Are Coming

Yes! I’m a big fan of so-called ‘shooting stars.’ My favorites are the Perseids. And actually – technically – they’re here already. Even more accurately, the Earth started passing through the debris-filled tail of comet 109PSwift-Tuttle on July 14^th and will continue to do so from now until August 24^th.

The most active evenings for maximum oohs and aahs as we stare into the cosmos will be the nights of August 12^th-13^th. There’s a chance we could witness 100 ‘shooting stars’ per hour at the peak of the Perseids. And lucky for us, the moon will only be waxing at that time – so her brightness shouldn’t drown out our ability to catch them streaking across the sky.

My reason for writing about them tonight is two-fold: First, there’s a good chance you’ll see some (maybe one or two – possibly more) brilliant streaks across the sky if you look up tonight. And knowing when and where to look is a major factor to meeting success! Second, it’s helpful to cultivate a love of star-walking in the evening now. That way, by the time the most active evenings arrive, you’ll have a routine in place and be able to jump right in (or lay right down) to enjoy the show.

Personal Sweetness

The Perseids are also my favorite light show because they always peak on our son Karl’s birthday. Even before he was a glint in my eye, I knew these particular meteor showers would always hold special significance to me when I watched them from the beach of an island off the coast of the former Yugoslavia (now Croatia). I was only 18 then, but the magic of that entire experience will never leave my bones.

I see that I’ve waxed rhapsodic over my beloved Perseids for two years now (of course), here, here, and here. It’s doubtful I’ll ever stop writing about them and the effect they have on my sense of place in the Universe. Extolling the benefits of immersing ourselves in one-on-one encounters with the natural world feels like one of the best ways I can honor the memory of my son.

If you haven’t yet given yourself the experience of witnessing miniscule particles streaking through our atmosphere and creating fireballs of light that generate spontaneous gasps of delight, it’s time. There’s something both profoundly inspiring and humbling to realize tiny specks of dust can create huge fireballs blazing across the sky. Doesn’t it make you wonder even for a moment what we might be capable of creating?

It’s moments like these that have the potential to remain in our hearts long after the television shows, card games, and movies have long since faded into oblivion.

Practice. Get ready. They’ll be here in droves by mid-August.

Photo: travelandleisure.com

(T-134)

Total Lunar Eclipse

I don’t have anything to say about tonight’s astronomical event that hasn’t been said a million times over.

Standing outside in the single digit air, wind whipping through the bare boughs of the ash, black walnut, and maple trees, I’m startled by the cracking emanating from some of them. I’m grateful that we only had to endure tons of rain the past few days, otherwise the weight of what would have been snow would almost certainly be snapping those boughs instead of stressing them to their crackling brink.

The wind is whipping, though. My wind chimes clatter and clang themselves into a frenzy. My fingers numb up within moments.

Being a fan of Mother Nature and always game to either stay up really late or get up at the crack of dawn (preferring the staying up late than the getting up early, if I’m honest) to snag a first-hand experience, I never fail to feel a connection back millennia, to ancestors who were equally (if not vastly more) fascinated by the machinations of our celestial neighbors. Honestly, I almost literally feel those generations rippling back through the soles of my feet, all of us standing rooted to the Earth, staring wide-eyed into the vastness above.

I doubt it took them very long to figure out that their world was not coming to an end when the moon turned blood red, for it’s not all that rare of an occurrence. Especially when there was no tv and the entertainment was the stars, planets, and constellations.

Total eclipses are rare enough to be remarkable, though. For instance, I’m pretty sure tonight’s is the only such eclipse in 2019, at least visible to North America. But what did they think when they occurred? More interesting to me, what did they feel? A connection backward in time? Forward? Could they feel me reaching back to them from now?

It’s undeniable that there is something profoundly primal and humbling about witnessing tonight’s lunar hide-n-seek in Earth’s shadow. We are but specks in the grand scheme our galaxy, the Milky Way.