It's 7:42 A.M.....Do You Know Where Your Towel Is?

Holy Berenice's Hair, stargazers! Ever since I was a little space cadet, I've always been fascinated with learning about outer space, astrology, extraterrestial mythology and the most improbable of improbable. (does the hale bop)



It was the great Danish astrologer/astronomer Tycho Brahe who said, "Those who study the stars have God for a teacher." Indeed studying the stars can reap such great poetry and inspiration, as it was Brahe who discovered the great constellation Cassiopeia (Andromeda's Mother) in 1572, which also inspired the great Edgar Allan Poe poem, "Al Aaraaf". Stargazing has become a divine will in my life, which its inescapableness only encourages me to continue dreaming and looking further upward. It can indeed be a great gift and a great curse, as often I let my imagination run wild and upgrade that starship to Ludicrous Speed! (giggles)



I believe learning of and appreciating the universe also helps us understand and appreciate our own planet Earth as well, remind us of what makes our world special. An American astronaut Donald Williams said, "For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us." I truly believe when you let yourself go, leap up to the stars in spirit, soon anyone can find ones self realizing that all boundaries and politics cannot be seen from high above looking back down upon the Earth, and ever so often you always see footage of astronauts coming back from outer space like they've just obtained enlightenment, because I feel they truly obtained a new-found reverence of Earth from space, and that we are ALL the caretakers of creation, we are ALL responsible for nurturing this often fragile blue beauty.



Y'all seen "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"? I absolutely recommend it to y'all, it both educated me and laughed my Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster right out! (giggles) It couldn't have been said better. Besides space being an endless ocean of inspiration and a great tool in helping edify us of humanity, finally there's the obvious: "The universe is big, really big! You just won't believe how vastly mindbogglingly big it is."



Indeed I am quite the daydreamer, some days I can feel feverish from my vast sense of wonder and look over my shoulder and see how far I've drifted from normalcy. Then again, when Arthur Dent said in the film, "Normality? We can talk about normality until the cows come home.", Ford Prefect responded, "What is normal?", then his love interest Trillian said, "What is home?" and THEN the cool yet lunkheaded President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox says, "What’re cows?" LOL! OK, so I may know what the two latter are, but, really, what is the standard definition of normal? It has always sounded like a rather rhetorical concept to me, and ever so often looking back in history it's those with the seemingly kooky personalities that many thought unthinkable at the time that have influenced and shaped history. Hey, I might just create the Heart of Gold spacecraft upon serendipity! (giggles)



So, in honor of the great Arkleseizure, in arrival of the great Handkerchief, I congregate to thee universe:

"Oh mighty Arkleseizure, thou gazed from high above,
and sneezed from out thy nostrils, a gift of bounteous love.
The universe around us emerged from thy nose.
Now we await with eager expectation,
thy handkerchief,
to bring us back to thee.
(blows nose)
Bless you."

Ahhhhh, that smarts! Hey Vogons, if you have any poetry you'd like to share here, I won't laugh at it or hemorrhage from the inside, I promise! Here in my Serotonin Sandbox, everyone is a friend and everyone's at home, and I'd love to read anyone's poetry, even Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings' of Sussex! (does Delphinus drift)



I'm an avid fan of solar eclipses. If solar eclipse viewings had Nielsen ratings, I would be what encourages others to continue enthusiastically looking to the skies. I have always been fascinated by them as I truly think there is an inexplicable providence depicted in each cycle of the moon and the sun. If you look back on history, it proves mankind has long been bewitched, smitten, prepossessed, tickled pink by this phenomenon. In fact, perhaps as early as October 22, 2134 B.C in ancient China, there are possible records of these cycles being registered in their memories. Hsi and Ho were hoping to predict the event and despite failing, they caught glimpse of this first possible record of the cycle and is written in an ancient document titled the Shu Ching. They even believe the eclipse was caused because of a dragon swallowing the sun, and to chase it away, the Chinese made commotion to try to scare it away and bring back daylight. Even in 585 B.C, a single eclipse changed the outcome of what would have been a bloody war between the Lydians and the Medes. When the eclipse suddenly occured, they called a truce and then made a peace agreement.

Even the Bible notes a significant eclipse. In 763 B.C, in Amos 8:9, it is said by God "And on that day, I will make the Sun go down at noon, and darken the Earth in broad daylight'." In fact, they say the Assyrians studied eclipses and much of the Bible's organization and time it was written is all thanks to eclipse timeline science.



"As long as the sun
shines one does not
ask for the moon."

Russian Proverb



All of this just convinces me more and more that I believe eclipses are more than just special-effects in the skies that Hollywood would kill to copyright. What if it all means something so much more? Being of much Cherokee blood, I value many myths, including "The Moon and the Thunders", where the sun is depicted as a young woman of the East and the moon a brother to her from the West, who the Sun had a lover but couldn't see his face and one day decided to speckle him with dust and upon a next visit discovered her love was the Moon, her brother, and embarrassed, the Moon makes himself thin and that is when the eclipse happens. Finally, I just have to say it is open to so much interpretation, but to me it is a message, a sign that can be preconceived so many ways, a chamber door opened from the heavens briefly. Either I just made you think or you think I'm just a big daydreaming dork with my clutch on Infinite Improbability Drive without a parking brake, and that's OK too! (giggles) Y'know I can always have access to a Point of View Gun anyway and get you to see things from my point of view anyway, being the already often bum rapped Scorpio I am, LOL! You can run but you can't hyperdrive!



So stay tuned, everyone, for the next total eclipse is scheduled to grace us this March 29, 2006 (it'll primarily grace Africa, Europe and western Asia, so you may have to activate your webcams for this one!)



The truth is out there, and I'll believe it to the limit Mulder! Bless You All, sweet dreams, and keep looking to the skies! And to that lucky mystery lady out there who my Scorpio heart longs to meet, what do you say we trip the light fantastic, just you and me? Don't forget to bring your towel on the way here to me, for it truly is the most useful thing a space traveller can have, in case you have to stop at someone's house on the way here and they see your towel and assume you have all your other toiletries and think you're sooooooo cool because you can wander the galaxies from one end to the other, overcoming every obstacle and every odd thrown against you, yet still know where your towel is! Bring some of that Zwicky's Triplet Torte too, astronette, U.D.O wants to throw a party!



To infinity and beyond...and then some!

Love,
Noah Eaton
(Mistletoe Angel)
(Emmanuel Endorphin)