When we first moved aboard Rejoice, Anna asked if we did star viewing from the boat; I said I wanted to learn. She suggested that I sign up for the daily email from Earthsky.org, which has in the ensuing three years become one of my favorite things. Last week it noted that there would be a lovely nest of things happening before sunrise; a little last slip of moon before the new/no moon framed by Venus, Mercury, and Spica.
This graphic is from the Earthsky.org daily newsletter. THEY ROCK! It's a mix of the day's good sky viewing and other very high quality, fascinating science news.
I'd recently made plans to go out paddling with my friend LauraLee on Election Day to watch the sunrise here in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, the sweet little fishing village on Banderas Bay where we've spent the past year. My favorite part of the early morning paddle turned out to be the long process of dawning before the sun rose, which left me very curious about the dark! When I saw this juicy sky event, I asked James if he'd come out with me in the dark before dawn. As is often the case with sky plans, the first day the alarm went off at 4:30 it was overcast and we went back to sleep. The second day, though, was perfect.
We put a lantern into a slightly transparent dry bag to make a light for our bow so we'd be visible to the fisherman who come in and out a lot around sunrise; here it's sitting on the dock before we get the kayak out. The stars were so bright even from the marina; it was a perfect day for viewing! I was so excited! James' review: "Dahlia coaxed me out of bed at 5am with the promise of moon and stars and sea and It turns out she was on to something with this whole kayak at astronomical twilight thing." He was very calm while I flipped around in my seat to get this footage.
Sharing adventure is so romantic. Feeling wild in the wild is among the best of feelings; it makes life and love shine hard.
These are quick snaps with my cell phone, but you caan see the moon, both planets, and Spica in the last shot, and the whole nest of stars was incredibly vivid in person. Oh!
As the sky began to grow light, we turned back toward the beach to meet LauraLee. We discovered that pelicans like to sleep on the buoys that mark the channel into the marina, and that since the kayak slips through the water more quietly than the paddleboard I take alone, we could get quite close.
The sun rose. I could watch the patterns of color rippling in the little waves for eons. That's just what LauraLee and I do! She's such a badass of equanimity that she brings AN OPEN MUG OF COFFEE on her board. We sit and watch the light on the water and the sky until the coffee is drunk, then we stand up and go paddle harder. I met LauraLee last year when I was teaching yoga in the in the marina. In Portland, she spreads joy with flowers through her Sellwood Flower Company. In Mexico, her husband teaches sailing and they have a beautiful casita on the beach; they gifted us a stay there for the month of July which made spending summer in Mexico during a pandemic so much kinder. You want to rent her house! Casa Tiburon is incredible. It's wonderful to have a friend who likes to play, and LauraLee and her husband Bill know much about this town, sailing, and choosing happiness.
We decided to paddle to the guano-covered rocks on the far side of the little beach past the marina. It was our longest trip yet in the kayak! When I go solo on my board I learn a lot from watching LauraLee and Bill, who are very experienced; I've paddled perhaps only a dozen times still. I AM SO HOOKED, THOUGH!When we pulled up to our dock, a charming lil Balloonfish/Spiny Puffer/Spiny Porquipinefish/Diodon holocanthus was chomping on it and could not be bothered to hurry. Cannot be bothered to hurry is one of my favorite lessons.
When I got home I texted Anna, who you might remember had suggested the resource that got me out here. Anna Hurst is an ACTUAL ASTRONOMER with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Getting people excited about the sky is her passion! I always wanted to be one of those people who knew about the sky, which seemed rather exotic and impossible. It turns out to be, like most things, simply a matter of what one turns one's attention and curiosity to. Anna's response to me is the title of this post. I wept with joy. Friend, you can do this too! The sky is everywhere.
Right now the Leonid meteor shower is peaking, and it's on through the rest of November! The adventure I'm writing of was a few days ago. This morning I got up and went out ON MY BOARD ALONE IN THE DARK to watch the Leonids. The joy and pleasure that fills me in being a wild thing among wild things is giving me the strength to weather these times. I wish this for you, too, to be at peace among the other creatures upon this earth, bright and alive.
