Sleeping with Nature

I spent last night in the tent, because I can, and the weather's been gorgeous and clear, stars are vivid, and this meadow is my own yard--I'll always remember nights in the tent. Set it up while the sun set and loaded it with sleeping pad, sleeping bag, extra blanket, and pillow, all ready to crawl into about 10 p.m. The tent's roof looks invisible but is transparent so all night the bowl of heaven and the almost-full moon shine down on me. I woke once and saw Orion rising in the east. In another hour I saw Venus, the morning star. The coming  lunar eclipse is Sunday, at maximum at 9:47 p.m., Midwestern time, in the sign of Aries: the Harvest Moon. An auspicious time to sleep as close as possible to it all.

Remind me these are dewy nights so I'll hook the rain fly on my tent and won't have condensation dripping on and -- surprise -- soaking my pillow before I even get in there, and waking me in the morning when the tent is in fact brightened by sunlight more so than anything around it.

Harvest Moon

Came home from a skirt-and-high-heels event dragging a huge bag of apples a friend harvested from his trees and gave me. Saw the rising full moon, said, "That's cool!" and grabbed camera and tripod and ran outside and worked until I got what I saw. The moon that's closest to the Fall Equinox is called the "Harvest Moon". This one's in the sign of Aries. Because it's the second full moon of the month for most of us, some people say it's a "blue moon." According to Wikipedia they aren't technically right, but let's pretend they are.