It was 2:54 a.m. when Peter checked the clock, got up out of bed, went to the living room window, and returned to inform me that he couldn’t see the moon from inside and was going back to sleep until the alarm went off. It was set for 3 a.m.
That seemed ridiculous to me. What’s another six minutes of shut-eye? But since Peter gets up before dawn to drive in early to the city for work, I uncharacteristically took pity on him. I turned off the alarm, bundled myself into the warm clothes I had laid out at the foot of the bed, and trudged onto the back porch to get a better look at the night sky. I promised to inform him if there was something worth seeing.
Sure enough, balanced gently on the bare branches of the trees was the rosy full moon. Rosy because this was the night of December 20, 2010 – the night of a full eclipse of the moon. By the time I staggered out into the cold it was perhaps 90% eclipsed with just a sliver of bright whitish-yellow moon waiting for the pink shadow of the earth to complete its journey.
I went back to give Peter the news and he joined me outside for a quick peek. The scientists say this was the first total lunar eclipse coinciding with the winter solstice in 372 years. I missed that one, of course. And the next is 84 years away. I don’t expect to be around for that one either.
There’s a wonderful time lapse video of the eclipse.
The experience made me think of the lovely lines from the Modim prayer for Shabbat morning in Mishkan T’filah, our Reform movement prayerbook. On page 257 it begins with thanking God for “…the expanding grandeur of Creation, worlds known and unknown, galaxies beyond galaxies, filling us with awe and challenging our imaginations.”
The moon is intertwined with Judaism. We measure our year by the lunar calendar. Major pilgrimage festivals in the Torah take place at the full moon to allow safer travel up to (and returning from) Jerusalem in Biblical days. Women have their own Jewish holiday – Rosh Chodesh – to celebrate the new moon.
We take the moon in the night sky for granted, pausing to oooh and ahhhh over it only when we happen to catch it out of a car window as it rises, large and glowing, at certain times of year. Or when summer nights draw us out for a late night walk and looking up we see the sharp outlines of craters and mountains staring back at us from a small white globe.
Years ago I read a fascinating little book entitled, What if the Moon Didn’t Exist by astronomer Neil Comins. I like “What if” books. Like the prayer says, they “challenge our imaginations.” What if the earth had no tides? What if life as we know it did not exist?
What if Peter had not woken at 2:54 a.m.? What if the alarm had not gone off? What if it had been a cloudy night? What if my warm bed was not waiting for me to crawl back in and drift off to sleep? What if I had to sleep outdoors bundled against the cold?
What if God had not given us eyes to see the wonders of this world? And minds to perceive its beauty? And hearts to feel for those shivering on a cold night beneath a rosy red moon? And souls to know that we are part of this marvelous creation and its unfolding?
