“Be not afeared. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again. And then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.”
~Caliban to Stephano, (The Tempest: Act 3, Scene 2)
In this image you see not a Cheshire Cat of the moon, but the sliver of sunlight blocked by a body much smaller than the light that gives it. This was 20 March of last year. Ah, for the solar eclipse, a darkness seen by only those on this tiny mote of dust – our sunbeam blocked by a ball of cinders that never burnt hot.
We knew not of the eclipse before we were at sea. Somewhere a day off the coast of Ireland between Cork and Scilly, suddenly the sky grew dark though there was moderate cloud cover. I wonder what the ancient mariners thought of such celestial events. What omens did a midday dimming of the sun foretell?
I cherish memories like this. Times like this separate the days from the memories. And times like these remind me that we were doing things just as it has been for thousands of years.
Stay tuned…
-Noah D.
