SKYWATCH FRIDAY – “Big birds flying across the sky, throwing shadows on our eyes” (Lake Erie)

Those of you who are Neil Young fans like me will recognize the title of this post as belonging to the lyrics of Neil’s song, Helpless—the one the begins, “There is a town in north Ontario.” Leamington, Ontario, where I live, isn’t in the north of the province. In fact it’s just a couple of kilometers from the most southerly point in all of Canada, where the land dips below the 42nd parallel north, and is the only point in our long shared international border where Canada is actually south of the U.S.

This sunset seemed to me like two birds’ wings—the dark wing of night advancing towards the east as the wing of day withdraws. Then I noticed how each wing was resting on a small “foundation” of its opposite. It reminded me, even though not circular, of the principle contained in the Taijitu symbol.



Optional music link:
For those who have the time and inclination, here is a LINK to a very beautiful PBS video from the American Masters series, of Neil Young singing an acoustic version of Helpless in concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall in 1971 (a much acclaimed live album) combined with almost dream-like northern landscape images.

Taijitu symbol from Wikimedia Commons


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SKYWATCH FRIDAY - Calling the Moon (the north shore, Lake Erie)

I took this on September 9th in front of my house, looking towards the neighbors. Around here the nights are, as the old saying goes, “blacker than the inside of a cow.” There are no streetlights on my road; it’s just a two-lane with no sidewalks, and cottages on both sides. Behind these in the photo is the lake; the other side is bound by farmers’ fields. The road follows the shore until it ends at the tip of Point Pelee, a spit of sand that is the southernmost point of Canada, extending just south of the 42nd parallel (equal to the southern border of Oregon). There’s a slight bit of camera movement in this shot; I was holding my breath because I didn’t have a tripod.




Standing out by the road in the almost perfect darkness, trying to capture the moon and Jupiter in my camera reminded me of the song, Calling the Moon.

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