It was a perfect total-eclipse-of-the Moon-viewing night last night. Temps in the mid-40s, no clouds. Orion hanging up there along with Canis Major and Taurus. Jupiter off in the distance. I went out about 1:30 as the eclipse was just starting and watched the crescent shadow slide slowly across the lunar face. After about 20 minutes I went back inside and came out again with my brother at 3:00 for the totality. I could hear some neighbors down the street talking quietly on their front lawn. The Moon was almost black with deep ocher undertones and a lighter golden tinge only around the edges. In the shading I got the sense of the Moon as a three dimensional world and not merely a disk. The deep darkness of totality brought out a slew of lesser stars that had been hidden by the full moon light: Pleiades and such as.
The silence, the darkness, the slow inexorability of the event itself put me in one of those states where I can feel and sense the Universe. I can see the relative positions of the Sun, Moon and Earth. I can feel the orbital motions and trace their paths. I can feel the curves of space-time holding me to the planet, the planet within the solar system and that within the galaxy. And I know, within me, inexpressibly, the grand laws and structures that underlie the whole beautiful assemblage.
And everything is right, for a while.
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