Wonder in the Night Sky

Following an unfortunate food choice last night, I found myself up every few hours. At 4:17 a.m. I came into the kitchen for a drink of water and was stunned by the light in the sky. I remembered that Venus is rising as the Morning Star these days and is pretty close to the Earth in her orbit. My goodness, was she stunning. 

The only fun thing about waking up unexpectedly in the wee hours is the night sky. Stars we don't normally see have come out, and sometimes we can catch the waning crescent moon rising in the East. That usually happens sometime after 3 a.m. during that part of the lunar cycle. Once, when I was away in the mountains of Virginia, I was up and saw a perigee moon, a rising waning crescent, huge and glorious in the sky. I felt like I had seen one of the ancient mysteries. 

There's something about the planetary bodies, luminaries, and fixed stars in the night sky that calls up wonder. A few years ago, while in the desert in California, I saw the Milky Way for the first time. I'd seen it in photographs, and that was magnificent, but there is nothing like witnessing it with one's own eyes. The next morning I watched the sun rise over the Anza-Borrego Badlands and Salton Sea. A few years before, I sat on the same boulder and watched the full moon rise there as the sun was setting in the west over the mountains and then the next morning watched the sun rise there while watching the moon set over the mountains. 

On my first trip to Santa Fe, I watched shooting stars and noticed for the first time that stars actually twinkle. That's how you can tell the difference between a star and a planet - stars twinkle, planets don't. Once, when Jupiter was very close to the Earth, I saw some of the moons. They were tiny points of light. And I saw shooting stars again in western Massachusetts and was stunned because I thought I had to be out west to see a sky so filled with stars. Here, near Philadelphia where I live, we don't see many stars, and we were not able to see Neowise, at least I did not see the comet. I did see Halle-Bopp every night for months in 1997 in my suburban subdivision in Delaware. 

I'm thinking about the night sky, I suppose, because of last night's wonder, but also because I'll be down the shore on Monday when the moon is full. It looks like I may meet a hurricane there as well because the forecast is suddenly for storms when it had been clear. I'd been looking forward to watching moonrise over the Atlantic. 

Not sure what to expect. That, too, is part of the wonder.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.