Picture: A shooting star under a starry sky. Taken by Finnish photographer Pekka Parviainen
”O Lente, lente currite noctis equi!”
(O Slowly, slowly, run you horses of the night)
”Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more seriously reflection concentrates upon them: the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me.” Immanuel Kant.
Another odd blog post from the odd me. And yet another one that was inspired by an odd incident that transpired in the firmament last night at 3am. As I mention in my ”interests”, star gazing actually IS my hobby that sometimes verges on obsession… I’m prone to obsessions anyway… very possibly somewhere on the spectrum of Obsessive Compulsive.
So, Anyhow…. as night falls, I miss no opportunity of gazing at the stars at least couple of times a night. My favourite constellation is Orion (for the layperson, the one with 4 stars that form a rectangle and have 3 stars inside the rectangle, placed diagonally.) Orion is just beautiful and has been with me as long as I started star gazing in my teens, in the Northern Hemisphere… and quite uniquely it is the only major constellation that is visible in both Northern and Southern Hemisphere.** I miss beautiful Great Bear since I moved down under.**
last night at 3am I was more or less falling asleep in my bed… and then… I just got up because I wanted to look at the stars. Which can be seen from my window (on the first floor of my student dorm.). Actually, starry sky works just like a huge Auditorium, if you think queer like I do. lol. Also, it moves as the night passes… all the constellations move just like the Sun does during daytime.
These, days at about 2am, Orion comes just in front of my window, as it slides towards the horizon and looks bigger and bigger, until all its stars sink below horizon and become invisible…one by one.
So , at 3am I rushed to the window and looked out at BIG magnificent Orion. And just as I was looking at it, a little shooting star streaked across it almost as if someone saying HELLO BACK! . Again, very SURREAL. ONLY this time it wasn’t a dream!!!!
That is the most beautiful picture I’ve come across today.
By “picture” I meant this whole post.
I have to agree, beautiful post. Stumbled across it while I googled “it was dark last night”
came across your blog when looking up the persian proverb you quoted. beautiful entry. reading what you wrote, i wonder why it is that pple who tend to obsess take more from nature- such as the starry night- than those who don’t. might also explain being up at 3am