The sky darkens to deep cobalt on its way to an even deeper black... A sprinkling of stars appears, shining improbably even as the full Moon graces the sky. Oh, but the Moon... A moment ago, it wore a glittering crown, that last moment of unfiltered sunlight that brightens the Moon on any other night... Now, we glimpse a Moon reflecting the light of the setting Sun from lands to our west and sunrises halfway around our blue planet. For the next hour, your pinkish red hue will mesmerize and hold our gaze, till the bright crown returns, and we turn away from your glare once again... Photographed May 2022.
The eclipsed moon peeks out between two crags in the Alabama Hills. Photographed May 2022.
Stare into the heart of our galaxy on a moonless night, and you find dark clouds of interstellar gas and dust spread across the brushstroke of stars my ancestors called the trail of the straw thief... Focus your gaze, and you begin to identify patterns that you see repeat- ed in the landscape below, in the sinewy limbs of bristlecone pines stretching skyward, in the light and dark streaks twisting about their trunks, and in the textures etched upon them by the incessant wind of time... Photographed July 2020, Schulman Grove.
