As I mentioned last night, the moon has been stunningly clear (and uncharacteristically photogenic!) on our walks the last few evenings. And walking beneath the vast and attenuated winter sky overflowing with brilliant points of light gives us the sense that we’re touching the Sacred.
I am trying my hardest to steer clear of writing about ‘out there.’
And by ‘out there,’ I mean pretty much anything that’s happening outside of our own direct experience and personal lives, but especially the myriad dramas playing out around us.
Tonight’s Waxing Crescent, Jupiter, and… Photo: L. Weikel
Another ‘Out There’
But now that I mention it, there were a few intriguing moments this evening that felt more connected to way far away ‘out there.’ The photo below, for instance, seems to depict a somewhat dull object (neither self-illuminated nor affixed with lights) underneath and slightly to the right of the moon. In every other photo I took of that same area of the sky, that object does not appear.
Waxing Crescent Moon, Jupiter (above), and… Photo: L. Weikel
‘Blink and it’s gone.’
Experiences like this do make me wonder just how much we miss every day.
The planet Jupiter, naturally, proudly shines forth just above the moon. It’s hard to miss. And astrologically, Jupiter tends to make everything ‘bigger,’ and usually ‘better.’
It doesn’t feel like that’s the case lately. Well, bigger maybe. But better?
I’m left feeling like there’s a lot left that’s being unaddressed. Everywhere.
Sometimes we stumble across a person, place, or thing in our everyday lives and we almost have to pinch ourselves to see if we’re dreaming. That’s sort of been Karl’s and my experience the past two early evenings. Not just once, but twice we’ve encountered a very obvious threshold; a portal into another dimension.
The spontaneous rising of a rather substantial bank of fog in the fields surrounding our home lent an eerie and ethereal atmosphere to our walks the past few evenings. On the one hand, we were treated to a spectacularly clear view of Saturn, Jupiter, and the waxing crescent moon creating a graceful arc in the evening sky. It’s also kind of cool to realize that, if our eyesight were only powerful enough, we’d also be able to see Pluto nestled in the expanse between Saturn and Jupiter.
Yet at the same time that we revel in that unobstructed view of those outer planets and our moon, when we bring our gaze down to ground level, we can barely see beyond our own shoes. There’s a little inner double-take that happens when we first realize how backwards this all seems. Why is our ability to see things up close so obscured?
Perhaps it’s a metaphor; I really can’t say. Maybe we’re supposed to be setting our sights on what we want to create and the ideals to which we choose to aspire. We know what we want; we can see it clearly. But maybe we’re supposed to reach those goals through an act of faith.
Approaching the Portal – Photo: L. Weikel
Entering the Portal
We reached a point in our walk both last night and tonight when the way ahead appeared to be an illustration straight out of a book of fairy tales. Clarity prevailed almost everywhere we looked, but straight ahead? Our path led us directly into what appeared to be a portal to another dimension.
Entering this portal felt like it might lead to another time and space. We joked that at least we had each other; maybe we should hold hands so as not to lose each other in the heavy mist. Perhaps the Beings of the threshold would try to persuade us to take a nap and we would awaken a decade or two hence.
It felt like we weren’t alone as we broached the almost cave-like threshold. A photo I took captured not a wall of fog but rather shapes and swirls and the maybe even the faintest source of cool hands brushing our cheeks and tickling our necks.
We walked maybe 25 yards through this ground cloud of haze only to emerge – suddenly – into a what felt like the other side of the mirror. We returned to the road, further along by far, but with our surroundings revealed to us with laser-like focus and clarity once more.
Photo: L. Weikel
Emergence
Were we changed by the experience? At first glance, it would appear we weren’t. But maybe we should take a little time. Wait and see. Was this a metaphor? Do we feel relatively unscathed because we persevered? Because we continued walking through the veil, putting one foot in front of the other and having faith we’d eventually emerge from the fog?
I don’t know.
It felt significant that we stayed the course; that we didn’t turn around or freeze up just because the way forward was suddenly and dramatically obscured. Not that we even entertained stopping. Or turning around. Not really. But…what was that passing in front of me as I tried to take a photo?
