Seconds after the morning sky begins to absorb the sun’s light, dozens of birds, each visible for just a fraction of a second, flitter from branch to branch. Only by staring intently at the tree for several minutes at a time can I see them. They are invisible except when they fly between branches. Otherwise, I would miss viewing the frenetic activity taking place behind a thick crust of leafy green camouflage and dark brown and grey bark. Like those birds, the moon remains hidden behind a privacy barrier most nights.
If I leave my house on the right cloudless night, I can look upward and see where the moon hides. But I rarely leave my house at night…cloudless or clear. I stay inside, deceiving myself that a roof over my head will protect me from meteors and asteroids and birds that die in mid-flight, plummeting to unsuspecting targets below.
Standing outside in front of my house, day or night, I cannot see much of the sky…thanks to trees blocking my view. Is it only the trees, though, that hide the sky? If I cannot see the sky, what assurances do I have that it is actually “there?” How can I be sure, too, all the stars have not disappeared with it into a portion of space that remains invisible to my eyes?
A composite image of the far side of the Sun was acquired at 18:16 Universal Time (Greenwich Time) on February 14, 2011. I remember that momentous occasion as clearly as I recall the sound of the Liberty Bell cracking, sometime after the year 1840. Important events take their importance from the context in which they occur. One is probably safe to say the crack in the Liberty Bell would have been overlooked entirely if—when the crack took place—a massive extinction event in which dinosaurs disappeared from Earth was occurring. And the importance of the image of the far side of the sun would have dimmed in comparison to a photograph of newborn baby Destiny Whitney published in her family’s album at the same moment. Saddam Hussein’s execution by hanging did not make newspaper headlines on Christmas Day in 2001 because he did not die until a few days past five years later.
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Pagan rituals must have fulfilled a need at one time. To the extent they are practiced today by people who take them seriously, they may still fulfill a need. Not for me, though.
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It’s 6:01 a.m. Time for me to return to a horizontal position…more suitable for sleeping than sitting in a chair.
