Thing-a-day.com

This is my post for last night, February 20–didn’t get to post it until today:

There is a spectacular total lunar eclipse happening this evening, with full eclipse scheduled to occur at 10:26PM EST. Looking out my kitchen window at an absolutely crystal-clear night sky, I can see the eclipse about halfway along, already taking on the classic red hue, with what I presume to be Saturn shining singularly to the lower left of the moon. This is thrilling, especially because in our part of the world any highly anticipated celestial event is very often obscured by complete cloud cover. Every August my son and I would set up our lawn chairs in the driveway in hopes of catching the Perseid meteor shower, and some 20 years into it we have yet to see them. So for this wondrous event to take place in absolutely cloud-free surroundings is exciting! I’ve only seen it once before, on a summer evening, again the lawn chairs and the whole family in our backyard, kids in jammies, coffee, juice and snacks on hand–a very special evening indeed. The ancients were understandably frightened by lunar and solar eclipses, believing that some heinous monster was devouring the light in the sky and that catastrophic events were sure to follow. Even now, there is somewhat of an aura of foreboding associated with these celestial happenings, so here’s my haiku for the day:

Red orb in black vault–

Total eclipse of the moon.

Superstition?  Fear?

Last 5 posts by Marna

• Happy Leap Day - February 29th, 2008
• Thursday, Feb 28 - ALEX - February 28th, 2008
• Wednesday, February 27 - Fertility Tree - February 27th, 2008
• Feb 26 - Spring Hopes--Eternal - February 26th, 2008
• Monday, Feb 25 - February 25th, 2008