Barn’s burnt down.
Now I can see the Moon.

-Mizuta Masahide (1657-1723)

That there is the Moon, and that it hovers above in the night sky like a giant fluorescent orb is all there should need to be for us to collectively resolve to live in harmonious peace. And yet we do not.

The Moon is, I would say, on the list of the top-10 most impressive things out there that we almost completely take for granted (these days, anyhow). Each and every member of the human race —  in our 4 million years of existence — has experienced the awe of peering out at that awesome lunar sphere. It is a floating memorial to all humanity lost, and a tribute to all humanity presently in circulation.

The Moon is perhaps the most striking reminder that we inhabitants of the third rock from the Sun are only a small part of something much much bigger. To paraphrase the great astrophysicist Carl Sagan, we are but one of billions and billions of planets, whose Sun is but one of billions and billions of suns, in a galaxy among billions and billions of galaxies. The Moon is, in a sense, our Mile Marker 1 in the great Cosmos.

Only yesterday I learned there was going to be (this past evening) a near-full lunar eclipse; a near perfect alignment of the Sun, Earth, and Moon such that the Moon sits for a term within the Earth’s shadow. The Beaver Moon, they called this one. I learned that this particular incarnation would last over 6 hours: a duration not experienced since the 1440s (and which will not again be experienced for centuries). Word of this coming phenomena was hardly a blip in the 24-hour news cycle. So sad that such a story didn’t make the headlines.  I myself found it tucked away on a feed somewhere between a story about the newly freed Brittney, and a piece touting some newfangled cryptocurrency.

The last time this 6+ hour lunar eclipse phenomena occurred was during pre-Columbian times, when a good part of the population was under the delusion that the world was flat (fast forward six centuries and strangely we have regressed to a place where millions in our midst still live under that very same delusion). But even before Copernicus, and in the days where folks debated passionately about who revolved around what, the Moon must have still been a wondrous site.

Last night’s Earth shadow on the Moon, it was so rare; so miraculous. Such a precious rare event, and yet hardly anyone showed up. Almost me included. When I went off to bed the skies were a ceiling of thick clouds. I assumed several hours later, at the 4am peak, the sky would still be obscured and that there would be nothing to see. Thus I did not set the alarm and I did not awaken for the 4am peak.

I wound up awakening instead — on my own accord — At 5:45, only an hour before the phenomena was to be completely over. I glanced out my bedroom window and could see that the clouds were completely gone, and the sky was perfectly clear. I damned myself for not rising earlier. Desiring to get a glimpse of the tail end of the show, I rushed out to my heavily wooded backyard only to find beams of light from street lamps and home floodlights blurring out what little of the night sky was visible between tree limbs. So I jumped in the car and navigated around my suburban neighborhood until I found a vantage that was slightly less light polluted and more-or-less free of tree cover. And I managed to get a glimpse of the finale of this lunar eclipse. What did I see? I witnessed a beautifully bright moon that looked same as it ever was. Same, except it had a little smear on it, which I suppose was where the last remnants of the Earth shadow was working its magic.

This wasn’t the most awesome or awe-inspiring thing I ever saw looking up at the night sky, but It was nonetheless pretty cool. I do wish I had gotten up earlier to see the whole show. But that’s OK, I can catch it next time it rolls around, on February 8, 2669.

When my wife and I were dating many years ago, there was a long distance between us. I was a citizen of the great state of New Jersey, and she resided in the vast rural plains of Northwest Oklahoma. Sometimes when we spoke by phone at night, I spied a glimpse of the Full Moon through the window. I would tell my love to look up at the sky, and she would glimpse that exact same Full Moon from a thousand miles away. And then I would say (I was a romantic back then) that although, my love, we are a half-continent away, our eyes are on each other by way of the Moon. And we felt together though apart.

In the intervening years, I have not glanced up at the Moon nearly enough. Having just reached the milestone of living a half-century on this planet, I am committing myself to the practice of staring at the Moon with frequent regularity. For the second act of my life, I will stare at the Moon to remind myself of the vastness of the universe and of how very interconnected we all really are. Although we may not all be here together in time and space, we all are right here together by virtue of this Moon. I understand now why the wolves howl.

Eric Ascalon

Cherry Hill, New Jersey

November 19, 2021