Tornado Warning Clouds – Photo: L. Weikel
That Was Intense
I don’t know about you, but my experience of this morning’s full moon awakened me out of a sound sleep. In fact, it woke both Karl and me up precisely 15 minutes before it reached its exact moment of fullness (4:30 a.m. ET). While neither of us are light sleepers, I rarely wake up at that hour – probably because I rarely turn my light off before 2:00 a.m. So I have no qualms declaring of last night’s full moon and penumbral eclipse: that was intense.
As far as literally viewing the darkening of the moon as it approached full immersion in Earth’s shadow at 4:42 a.m., I have to admit I was surprised by how brilliantly I felt the moon was shining when I stood at the window taking her in. I was disappointed that I couldn’t discern any evidence of our planet’s shadow falling upon her face.
Granted, clouds were scuttling across the sky at a fevered clip, but there were enough gaps between them to get a clear view of the moon. What I found odd was that I was actually awake to check it out. I honestly had no intention of trying to see the phenomenon, figuring I’d be comfortably enjoying REM sleep at that time.
When Karl realized I, too, was wide awake, he asked me why I thought we were both suddenly bright eyed and bushy-tailed. He had no idea what I’d written my post about. So we were both surprised when I checked the time and exclaimed that we were witnessing the moment of the full moon and darkest part of the eclipse.
The Heavens Opened
Once I paid homage to the celestial event that demanded our wakeful attention, I fell back to sleep immediately. But the next thing I knew, I was half dreaming, half imagining a waterfall cascading somewhere behind my head – only to realize it was rain pouring so hard and fast from the sky that the gutter above the window closest to my head was overflowing in a literal cascade.
Thus began a day of eerie silence, broken only by the pounding of rain at our windows and the rushing, roiling madness of the chocolate milk colored water racing along the creek bed beside our road.
Very few birds and no squirrels ventured outside. Karl and I both jumped when a Tornado Warning blared out of our cell phones advising us to take cover either in our cellar or a safe room in the center of the house, preferably with no windows. The sky turned a deeply unsettling hue of yellow-brown. Thunder rumbled ominously.
I tried to capture the sense of imminent potential danger posed by this front, but I have to say, I didn’t succeed. My biggest disappointment in the photo above is the fact that posting it in the blog robs you of the ability to press your finger to it to activate the ‘live’ feature. Because that is the weirdest part of all: when I press my finger to it, lightning seems to emanate from the trees in the photo. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It is not lightning from ‘outside.’ For the life of me, it looks like the trees are creating the lightning.
Yeah…today was a weird day. And just think – it was only the first day of ‘eclipse season’ 2020.
Full Moon (before bed) 30 Nov 2020 – Photo: L. Weikel
(T-361)
Last time I shared an eclipse with you we were walking in Doylestown, I was carrying Sage and the trees diffused small images on the sidewalk and across Sage’s beautiful face. That was a Solar eclipse but a beautiful memory!
I remember that solar eclipse vividly – and have described it to Sage many times! The trees diffused the eclipse into hundreds of ‘moons’ all over the sidewalk.
A most precious memory, my friend. It felt magical.