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| Neowise over Ashokan photo by Eric Sheflin |
What we expect to see can differ from how and what we look for.
At some point sense becomes localized, meaning and reference internalized.
The other is a presence put together with what information we can gather, and a great deal of our own imagination and conceptual structure.
Sensitivity and exposure the major components of contrast and definition in recording.
Recording is communication, a muse inspired art involving mind, memory ,and feeling shared.
More than subject object spiritual dimension messaging the medium is a third party channel.
Visiting company- intelligent conduit-creative matchmaker -spirit trap capturing the moment.
There is a special quality to the lingering summer twilight on the adjusting vision and mood of the viewer.
After the dramatic sunset the intermission transition of sensory stimulation shifts with environmental scene changes.
fast!
My Wife was flipping on and off the high beams on the familiar way to our nearby landmark where we would meet a friend to show us the comet.
A few patches of misty fog as you might expect in the mountains,
hangs low twisting surface silhouettes in space without shine or shadow.
The parking lot looked full, but we found a spot before the complete darkness of a moonless night set in.
The road was the closest crossing of the city owned reservoir to get to home, closed to vehicular traffic for a number of years it is now a walkway over the dividing wier between east and west basins.
Walking out over the gap with our masks on looking for the shapes and sounds of our friend, telescope and camera.
I had brought along some cheap field binoculars of my dads for my wife and nineteenth century opera glasses in a reproduction reenactors cartridge box for myself.
I had seen the Hale - Bopp comet years ago visiting a recovering father out west having been released from the care of the neighbor to the south.
The significance of the phenomenon not being one that was sought out at that time,
This time I am not a simple witness but a stalker searching for a guide in the form of a passionate hobbyist to point me in the right direction.
The right place at the right time-the sky dome all around ,finding a friend without trouble to point out the international space station arcing across the intermitted strobe and running lights of air traffic,
My old opera glasses hyper extended in a wobbly way, but I was able to peep the suns light bouncing
off the orbital platform .
I had watched the initiatory launch on television,
of the nations human space booster with a returning descending first stage accompanied by an east coast autonomous spaceport drone ship named ,
" of course I still love you"
The home port near the hospital where my dad died, the funeral home that cremated him.
There are people living in the light moving across my wonky bent lens.
Through dust and scratches smoke stained eyes still see bright otherness motioning, suggesting a determined pathway exists.
Safe Home to the crew not yet returned in their vessel, all of us spirits in transit, lights on the move.
I was a dimly perceivable presence in a pandemic socially distanced viewing opportunity sitting on the black top letting the horizontal barricade cut a line over the reflecting water.
Orienting and grounding gravity lying on my back looking up and out,
feeling safe as long as I wasn't trampled in the dark by the children and attendant adults who's voices carried in the night before the comet would let itself be seen.
The light of the comet that we see is like that of the moon , planets and international space station, reflected sunlight.
Atmospheric conditions tend to set the limits for visibility as well as line of sight.
The difference from the luminous ambient glow of surroundings is detected first by peripheral vision enhanced and on alert a motionless light anomaly visits familiar space ,
presence of autonomous other?
Ghost and guest , unexplainably experienced by the naked eye for all to see.
A steady breeze made for little regular lapping waves on what my friend was hoping would be a flat reflective surface for the image he would capture.
It was hypnotic
The light
The sound
The feel
I take My mask off so My glasses stop fogging up.
Just out of my vision, I hear a familiar voice observing the telescope and laptop imagery of the comet ask my friend,
" Did I see you at a party of the Perrins'? "
surprise magic friend encounter!
I mask up.
My Wife was able to get the image above from the familiar voices husbands new hand held phone with special long exposure application for photos of the night.
I think he said he had to be perfectly still and steady for seven minutes to get it,
he shared it in less time than it took to make it,
in My Wife's phone before we said thank you and goodbye.
The opposite view of the other side on the return was equally a surprise light show of fireflies, blinking among the pines magic friend encounter! with a glow that was not reflective of a singular source of radiant energy like the sun or stars but a multiplicity of individual bio luminescent beings backsides broadcasting breeding intentions with internally generated brightness.
I'm currently working on a painting of that view while writing this and thinking about the reflective body of collected grains and particles of frozen cosmic smoke that are blown by the solar wind in the vacuum of deep space as a tail that is a trail of atmospheric debris melting away from the surface of an object with an unknown center, the composition of the inner circle is hidden.
a mysterious core,
a solid material composition and substance that
is manifest as a spectral shroud held together with its own agency independently
responding to internal and external electro magnetic dynamism and gravitational fields .
travelers outside of our solar system, outside of our immediate family or group believed to be the source of the earths waters and the seeds of life on this planet.
