hodayot [thanksgivings] for today

9:04
My Body, my Partner, my God
I give thanks to our liveliness and flexibility,
which made it easy to get up at 4:40 A.M,
in order to watch the lunar eclipse, the dawn and the sunrise.

I give thanks to the fantastic technology,
which allowed Spaceweather.com to inform me ,
that a full lunar eclipse - the last until 2010 - would occur,
and I give thanks to all the people,
who prepare, gather, edit info which is interesting to me
and put me on their mailing-list!
And all this without any money or effort on my part!

Finetuning to my Present

It was about time to experience the hour before dawn,
and then dawn
and then the sun rising and bringing everything to life.
Is it possible that I have never done this since the summer 2006,
the last time I slept outside above the Dead Sea with the Seven,
and the last time, when Tomer wanted to see the sunrise from Arad,
and Rotem and I joined him willingly?

Yesterday evening I called my astronomer grandson, Itamar (who will be ten in 3 days),
to urge him to read my e-mails with links to Spaceweather.com
(in response to the link he had sent me: Astronomy.com)
and consider,
if he wanted to get out of bed and watch the lunar eclipse.

Without this phonecall I may have stayed lazily in bed myself.
But as if needing to be a good example, I got up at 4:40,
and - in leaving the house through its main, western entry -
I saw the elating sight right in front of me:
most of the moon was covered by earth,
but a small part on the lower left was still bright.

At 4:50 I had already reached Dommin-Hill,
but by then I understood,
that this was not the end of the total eclipse, but its beginning.
I know, that in this region we are 1 hour ahead of GMT,
but had I been sure, that GMT is not influenced by "winter-time",
which would mean . that in winter we in Israel are 2 hours ahead,
I would have gotten up only at 5:40 and had missed the show.

Next time - in 2010 - I must also remember,
that it might be nicer to begin watching the moon,
when it is only partly covered,
for it's the process of covering which is most fascinating.
Once the moon had been totally covered - for almost an hour -
it looked as if this would never change, and it was even a bit depressing.
Immanuel, on the other hand, told me that a total eclipse is magnificent.
"Yes, but you saw it during a flight high in the sky!"
He admitted that.

Being already awake and outside, I decided to experience the dawn.
I returned to the house, brought my little tripod for better photographs,
and some more clothes to keep me warm,
and walked along the roads to a hilly site,about 30 minutes east of Shoham.
The traffic was already too much for me and I yearned for a path to avoid it.
There was none, but I was still grate-full,.
that there at least existed an area called "Shoham Forest",
though the only access to it was a jeep trail , no path.

When the moon again "uncovered itself" - why on the left upper side?-
it had already sunk quite low in the West,
and by then the morning haziness over the horizon began to obscure both,
the uncovered and the still covered parts.

But in the east, where at 4:50 only Jupiter was visible,
Venus appeared and followed her big brother,
then the sky became brighter and brighter
and when the sun rose
I turned around and tried to find a path back.
(about the "path" see tomorrow),
I came home just in time - 7:10 - to take Nella out,
while Immanuel and Efrat and Mika got ready for leaving the house,
Mika to kindergarden, Efrat to her office, Immanuel to New York


It was good to imagine during my walk,
(which was strenuous, even painful, for my groin, I must admit),
how I would sculpt my experience in today's K.i.s.s.-log!

Where there was
an eclipsed moon,
just a moment ago,
there is now
the blueness
of the dawn
over Shoham

I've long since left the jeep-trail
and stepped and climbed
among the rocks and shrubs and flowers .
Suddenly I meet a small path!