In my opinion, as we head into these days of Winter, I feel the need the share my hatred for shoveling abortions.  (a shout out to my favorite troll)

On a lighter not e, tonight begins the countdown to the End of the World in 2012.  Seriously!  A full lunar eclipse right on the Winter Solstice hasn’t happened since 1638, which, coincidentally was not the year Cortes conquered the Aztecs!  A different lunar eclipse in 1638 (in June, just 3 days after the Summer Solstice) was the very first astronomical event ever recorded in the Americas (by Westerners), and since much of the Hoopydee doo surrounding the 2012 Apocalypse comes from Mayan sources (which weren’t Aztecs, but close enough), this lunar eclipse, by the power of hyperbolic extension, must be extremely significant and mark the beginning of the End Times.

Certainly, it’s enough coeenkidinks to make a History Chan nel special.  Maybe I should call those guys from Ancient Aliens: The Series.

Now, you may be wondering, based on my discoveries regarding 1638, two total lunar eclipses in the same year?  How often does that happen?  I have no idea, but it can‘t be too infrequent as it happened, here in America anyways,  in 2007.  I remember it very well because I was just getting into making videos, and of course, I tried to record both.

On March 3rd, 2007, I made my first video that afterwards I watched and thought, “yeah, that’s not so bad”.  You’ll recognize that I use some of these same tricks to this day; like setting up the camera on a path, and then nonchalantly walking through the shot as if I was just proceeding on my way.

Now, it kinda drags a bit in the middle, but watch it to the end because I describe a metaphor there that I want to explain and explore more fully.

I took the “helicopter” analogy from Flashbacks, the Autobiography of Timothy Leary.  Back in the early heady days of his experiments with psychedelics, he shared some LSD with a man, whose name I forget, suffice to this guy was sufficiently ‘learned’, a guru type who had spent a lot of time contemplating the mysteries of existence and was spiritually ‘advanced’.  He didn’t care for the LSD all that much despite agreeing with Leary’s assertions that this, and other drugs to some extent, could open the mind to heightened states of awareness that otherwise would not be so accessible.

“When I was a child in Switzerland,” the learned guy related, “on warm, summer days, we would go on all-day hikes to the mountain tops.  We’d bring food, chat along the way, take our time.  When we got to the top of the mountain and looked around, the view was absolutely incredible.  It made you feel closer to God.  Now, it would have been possible to have jumped in a helicopter and flown to the same mountain top in a fraction of the time.  We’d see the same view, but it would not have the same effect.  It would not have been as spectacular.  It would not have brought us closer to God.  It was the effort of climbing the mountain that made the view that much more amazing.” (note: this is not a quote from the book, just my memory of that part)

That’s what I was getting at in the video.  It was because I spent time hunting for the moon that it was made so spectacular.

Today, I look at that video and think back to having a car.  I drove 90% of the way to the top of the mountain. Imagine what that moon would have looked like had I biked up the hill!

The second lunar eclipse of 2007 happened on August 27th.  The video I made that night was not nearly as “peaceful”…  I think I was drunk for much of it, and two days later, I quit my job as a subprime loan officer.

Jokoclipse

Joko | Myspace Video

What will tonight’s lunar eclipse bring?  In about an hour from now, I’m getting on the bike on heading out in the cold, wet night to find a nice and dark place to record.  Down by the river maybe.  There is also supposed to be a meteor shower happening simultaneously…

Let’s just hope the clouds cooperate.  It was looking pretty overcast out there a little while ago.

May your Ecliptical Winter Solstice be a momentous one!