Stars on the Ground
Stars on the Ground
Plus a bench update and the return of my heron friend!
Check out this star field photo…
Magnificent, isn’t it? But this wasn’t looking up in the sky in the middle of the night but instead it was looking down at the ground at about 8:30 yesterday morning (and with a bit of photo editing mixed in). Here’s what it actually looked like…
And then the wider image...
The shadow there is me using my sunglasses as a filter over my camera lens because I wasn’t sure I was seeing the colors only because of my sunglasses or whether that’s how they looked in “real life.”
But it was magnificent just walking there and seeing these beautiful sparkles of blue, red, yellow, orange, and white. I tried to record a video showing the magnificence of the changing sparkles as I walked but it was really only something that could be seen in person and in the moment (or with some photoshopping after the fact). It was a noticing moment - and I’m so grateful for it.
This morning, I read the following prayer in Padraig Ó Túama's book Being Here: Prayers for Curiosity, Justice, and Love that gave words to what I had seen and was feeling.
Jesus of the beasts
you noticed foxes, birds, cattle, sheep;
fish, and humans too.
Looking at other breathing things,
even trees,
may we see our place in this fragile family,
because unless we do
we’ll subdue them,
demeaning the value
of everything that lives
or moves
or has being.
Amen.1
Noticing…that’s what I heard in that prayer this morning.
There’s been a lot stirring for me recently and that’s why it’s been a while since I posted anything. I wasn’t sure what words were there. But maybe sometimes words aren’t quite as necessary but instead simply sharing the noticing the foxes, birds, cattle, sheep, fish, humans, trees, and the sparkles of the melting frost - twinkling stars on the ground rather than in the sky.
Bench update...isn’t it beautiful how different the water looks day to day? And also how the sun is now starting to poke up above the horizon (at least until the time change in a few weeks).
And then a few more from this morning. My heron friend is back! A few ducks playing (they kept bobbing their heads up and down), and then that beautiful contrail dancing with the morning light…
GPLJ,
Ed
Ó Tuama, Pádraig. Being Here: Prayers for Curiosity, Justice, and Love (pp. 103-104). Eerdmans. Kindle Edition.