Spring Equinox

Perhaps my guardian angel?

I didn't grow up learning a thing about angels.  They didn't have a place in the religion of my youth.  And even as an adult, I didn't hear much about them until fairly recently.  I have a friend who talks about them with great familiarity, and I feel like I missed out on something wonderful.

So I've at least been noticing birds.  They have wings.  They sing.  And there seem to be some who just pop into my attention when I least expect them.  I do talk to them, doesn't everyone?  Crows, mockingbirds (like my "perhaps guardian angel"), sparrows, towhees, cardinals, wrens, hummingbirds, chickadees...you know they are almost everywhere.  When I go to the Lake Tomahawk I get to see Canada Geese, French Geese, Mallard Ducks, white ducks, Wood Ducks, and Muscovy Ducks. 

It amazes me that these little feathered people, creatures that walk around rather awkwardly or perhaps hop sometimes, can just stick out their wings and flap them a few times, and they are airborne.  To fly, isn't that miraculous?  Have you ever done it, and I mean on your own?.  One friend speaks of how she has in the past...and I think I did as a child too.  It was something maybe out-of-body for me...certainly if you want to be scientific about it.

OK, this was supposed to be in honor of the Equinox. How about a 5000 year old celebration of the sun inside the cairn at Loughcrew, Ireland?  This video is especially to be commended, because so many equinoxes have rain and no sun shining to the headstone at all.

Loughcrew Cairn in Ireland at Equinox
Everyone is a bit miffed at Gaia right now...or more awestruck than usual.  That's thanks to a couple of volcanoes, and myriad earthquakes recently.  Our Mother Earth has done her nature washing, shaking, rattling and rolling in the changes that are perfectly normal to her, but that inflict hardship and pain on the small species that seems to have overridden her surface.  In the greater scheme of things, as earth revolves daily, as it spins in it's arc around the sun, people are like fleas, though perhaps a bit more intelligent.  That is still debatable.

When you think of the daily or yearly cycles of the earth, it seems pretty immense.  But let's get some real perspective.  Look at this site to see some amazing events, thousands of light years away.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

That means that the light took that long to reach the viewer from the place we think we're looking at....which may not even be there any longer.  If the site shows something on earth on the particular day you look at it, check the archives for some views from the Hubble Telescope of the dark field, where thousands (of course really many more) of galaxies were photographed that had never even been seen before.  A recent post said it's picture of a galaxy was "located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way."

How about a million?

a Million Galaxies

OK, I digress (again).

I do want to acknowledge the great equality of day to night hours at equinox...which happens twice a year.  I love the feeling of balance this gives my life.  This is when sunshine is at an optimum angle coming into my living room...and during the summertime it probably won't enter much at all, whereas during the winter, when the tilt of the earth means the sun is much further south, the sunshine peeps deeply into the room.  This is something we all know, and mostly ingnore.  Do you remember when you first noticed how your life was influenced by this angle of the sun?

Well, that's what my angels feel like.  That I am part of this life, this existence on EARTH, which is governed by laws of nature, and probably some other forces that are unknowable...but they still penetrate my life and help me to enjoy my daily existence.

Thanks angels.