We Interrupt this Mania for a Moment of Beauty

I cleaned my house all day today, and sat to take a break and watch my LOTR DVD. As I did so, I noticed the sunlight lighting my curtain. I have this sheer curtain to separate my bedroom from the living room without shutting the door; it catches the setting sun in a special way. I hung it for this reason. See for yourself! These are pictures I took from my vantage point on the couch. I love my little house.

The sky is up to something.

August 2008

Brewster, MA

The sky is a fiery inferno!!

Judgment Day

My father captured the following cloud formation one day this summer:

I have never seen anything like this in my life!!! Have you? Here are his thoughts as he faced the possibility that Judgment Day was upon him:

August 15, 2007, 2:30 PM, Western CT. Sky mostly clear and blue, temp 75%, low humidity, no winds. A sprinkling of high small puffy clouds. Over the course of less than an hour, two large, nearly circular, clear areas formed in the puffy cloud background. In the middle of these were bright, dense streamer-like formations of a different cloud type. One of these took on the appearance of a huge and symmetrical pair of wings. I had never seen anything like this, and I quickly began reviewing my life:

Is my baptism still valid? Is my will up to date? Oh shit, my closets are still a mess, not to mention the garage! Should I get out the tape recorder for the trumpet? I brought out the camera, in any case.

To my great relief, the cloud formations slowly dissipated, and I am still here to tell about it. But watch out, children, this may have been “only a test."

Pretty Thing in the Sky

These were taken over Massachusetts last week:

Pretty Thing in the Sky

Sun Dog

6:17 PM

July 19, 2006.

Other sunlight moments:

The Sky is Rent Asunder!

Eclipse
Edge of Storm
Moment of Beauty

On the edge of storm.

Friday, May 19

Earthshine

The moon looked pretty damn cool on March 1st.

The Sky is Rent Asunder!

I took these photos on Wednesday afternoon while waiting for the train; there was a freaky wind storm here in Connecticut and the sun broke through for one brief instant.

Speaking of Eclipses ... (weren't we?)

During a partial solar eclipse in the mid-90's, I took my class outside, equipped with pinhole projectors and welding masks. We stood and waited for the moon to creep over the sun and to obscure it, something most of us had never seen before. Oh and by the way … some teachers stayed indoors and pulled the shades in their classrooms to avoid "distractions" and kept conjugating verbs as this once-in-a-lifetime celestial opportunity passed their students by.

Anyhow … not so the case for my class, gleefully projecting sunlit crescents all over the place. Then we discovered the "pinhole effect" in unexpected places, anywhere something with little spaces in it cast a shadow: hair, leaves on trees, blades of grass. It was a surreal and lovely thing to see; millions of eclipses, dancing with the breeze under every tree. I shall never forget it. It looked like this: