#22.20 - The Moon

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La Lune

It has been a great day. First waking up and hanging out with the boys, then drawing the moon, getting the final bits of prep ready for school, and finally doing the weekly shop. The boys hoovered the house. The shop was in budget and I was feeling good about things. I don't know what it is about astronomy. I do not think it is possible to be in a bad mood if you are looking at the stars. If you are looking at the stars, everything is small stuff. Especially the very small stuff.

So, this evening, loads of lesson prep and then more lesson prep... and then laundry. I am going to catch up with laundry later on this evening.

Drawing the Moon made me realise that it was so fascinating. What were all these features? How large were they? Some of these chasms were twice the size of the Grand Canyon which I'd imagine is very large. These 'seas' were not seas basaltic lava flows which were almost 4 billion years old. The Earth - in fact the entire solar system is about 5 billion years old we think. Not more. 5 billion. That is a lot of years. A billion is a million million. Which is mad. Just unfathomable. You might as well as eternity. What is the point of giving it a number when the number is incomprehensible?

The stillness and peace and calm. Just wonderful. The beauty of the universe rushing on the shores of our consciousness. That is what stargazing is. It is the singlemost profound thing we can do. When they say the Magi followed a star to find Christ, I understand the enormity of it now. To see a star appear, blaze up, from trillions of light years ago, finally come down to Earth and then the child is born, a promise fulfilled. A promise made in the vast expanses of space to us...that God cares. That we are looked after. I am utterly humbled by the thought, the gesture. We are regarded as beloved. That is what the star's appearance means. This is why the Wise Men are in the story. They are stand ins of the priests of old. Melchizedek, Elijah, Noah - men who have spoken with God - but now in the languages of the stars. That is the meaning of the story. I never understood it till now.

This week it all begins again. The running, the writing, the routine. The exhaustion has lifted. The moon has retreated. We are once again restored. 

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