Today we went across the river to shop in New Westminster. It was a clear, sunny day; even though everything froze hard overnight, by noon the ice had melted wherever the sun reached.
We were done shopping by 4:30 and headed home. The setting sun was mostly straight ahead, almost at road level. The sky, even through sunglasses, was a light orange, the sun a blinding orange-yellow circle, dimmed by haze just enough to let us see its shape. And big; as big as the harvest moon of last November.
I tried my best not to look directly at the sun, especially because I was driving. But it kept leaping out at us as we crested a small rise or as the road turned under us. Luckily, it was partially screened by trees, leafless but still providing some cover. Maybe that was why it looked so huge; the trees barely covered half its diameter.
The road home crosses three bridges. On the second one, the sun was to our right, haloing the trees of the bog*, touching up the bridge railings with orange highlighter, ricocheting off the river, off windows and tin roofs. I turned away, to the left, to rest my eyes.
And there was the moon. A full moon, fully as big, today, as the sun, but gleaming white, whiter even than the snowy mountains below.
Round white moon, round orange sun, and us in the centre in our little white car on the rounded slope of the bridge.
Beautiful!
At moments like these, I get an inkling -- a sensation, an intuition, maybe -- of our planet as part of a much larger world. Bodies, large and small, whirling in a rhythmic space dance, and ourselves as mere dots crawling on the surface of this blue-green ball. Insignificant, even in our cities, freckles on the skin of the world. Yet important, because we are part of that larger whole. And because what we do can affect the dance, even if only by changing the dress of our particular performer.
And, if the presence of an observer has an effect on reality, as some say, we are that observer.
I explain that very badly. I don't know if we have words to do justice to the feeling.
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*(Either Lulu Island Bog, or Burns Bog, I'm not sure which. Depends on the exact angle.)
**Changed my mind: here's a moon shot. Crescent Beach, last month.
Yes, you explained the feeling quite well. What a beautiful sight it must have been. I have always wished that we could see the stars and planets during the day, so we would remember always that we are whirling in limitless space.
ReplyDeleteIf you were so inclined, you could use the word 'spiritual' to describe these feelings.
ReplyDeleteWhich of course you won't / needn't, as you described it perfectly!
;)