For some unknown reason, I happened to wake up around 4:15am this past Saturday morning. I immediately remembered that there was to be a Total Lunar Eclipse around that time, so I walked outside and looked at the sky. The moon looked very strange – the full moon was visible mostly in shadow with just a sliver of it being lit white. It later became totally orange – a “Blood Moon”. It was like nothing I’ve seen before, so beautiful, so other worldly. I didn’t expect the eclipse to look like that – I thought it would just be blackened out. I grabbed my camera and tried to take some pictures (without a tripod) and here is the best of them:
As I stood outside, thinking about the earth being right between the sun and the moon, I thought about how vast the universe is. It is something I think about from time to time, especially when I’m confronting nature. It is also a thought that comforts me in times of stress. We live in such a fabricated world in our minds. But when I’m in nature, I can let go of the “to-do” lists in my head, the goals I want to accomplish, and all the other thoughts that seem so important. It all disappears in an instant when I focus on a tree, or a mountain – or the planets. I’ve heard it said that two ways to be totally present are to do gardening work or to be with an animal. Both automatically keep you present and in the moment. Looking at the eclipse did exactly that and more. It erased all connection to the man made life we live in, and I felt part of nature -part of the “real world” so to speak. I felt a connection to all the people in the past, for thousands of years, that looked up and saw this same thing. I felt part of a bigger picture. I felt a sense of belonging. And I felt the wonder of life. All the stresses from the thoughts in my head get put into perspective in an instant, and I realize how insignificant they are. It brought me back to the realization that life is so much bigger than we can comprehend. Life is so big, so grand, and so mysterious. We don’t have to “know” all of it. We are part of it. I think on some very deep level – beyond our comprehension – we already know all about life since it is us. We are life, just in a human form. We’ve come to think we are separate, but we are not. We are connected, part of everything around us. We even share much of the same DNA as all other life forms – trees, plants, insects, animals, fish. Why not stop and have a look at nature (a tree, the sky…) and regain some perspective.
It is a concept I continue to explore in different ways in my songs. The most obvious expression is in my song, “So Small” from my CD, ‘Peace At Last”. The chorus directly states what I felt looking at the eclipse:
I look to the ocean waves to wash away my own dismay
Stare into the dark of night with all her stars that shine so bright
Making me so small
So small
Set against a drum and bass sound, this song also touches on how important we think we are, while realizing we are just a fraction of life:
The world is such a great big place
It’s so much bigger than our own race
I know we’re so small
From the wettest forest to the driest sands
It’s all more essential than our demands
I know we’re so small
You can listen to the song here:
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