Saturday, August 28, 2010

Sun and moon

"The first day of the dwarves' New Year is as all should know the first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter. We still call it Durin's Day when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together. But this will not help us much, I fear, for it passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again."

Durin’s Day would have landed somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas on our calendar; I’m not sure what the Dwarves’ calendar called the same day at the end of summer, but arrived here on Thursday morning, and it was absolutely beautiful.

Riding down 5th Street in the crisp, clear air at about 7am, the sun was up over Mt. Hood behind me; and there, straight ahead of me, at about the same elevation in the western sky, was a beautiful full moon, the last full moon before fall begins. It was as white and perfectly etched as the snowcap on Mt. Hood.

Next will come Harvest moon and Hunter's Moon.

An extra treat: That night, at about 9pm, I was riding downtown (in Northwest) and there was the full moon again, back in the lower eastern sky, just as beautiful as it had been 14 hours before.

No comments: