Evening Sky

Death Valley '10

Psalms 148
Praise ye the Lord, Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights. 2 Praise him, all his angels, all his hosts. 3 Praise him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. 4 Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters above the heavens. 5 Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created. 6 He hath also stablished them for ever and ever; he hath made a decree which shall not pass.


There are billions of stars in the sky, but only a couple thousand are actually visible to the unaided eye. On the road back from Death Valley, my friend and I snapped a pic of the sky which afforded us greater visibility far from the light pollution of the cities. ('Snapped' is actually the wrong word to use as it implies making quick work of the process--this particular photo actually took a few minutes. We would have liked to have kept the shutter open longer, but we were interrupted by highway patrol.) By the way, the eerie orange glow on the ground is actually from her hazard lights blinking behind us. It creates kind of a cool effect though, I like to think. Anyways...

It is a curious thing to consider how small a portion of the sky we actually see. Our sky seems boundless, but we have only a tiny window to the great beyond. Like peep-hole size. If that.

Lend me your imagination again and I will write you a pretty little shred of prose. :)

Imagine that you can take flight, without any apparatus and soar into the air. You pierce the skies, traveling high above the earth. As you penetrate the upper layers of the atmosphere your little bubble is engulfed in flames from the sheer friction of your speed. You burst into the realm of the stars, unimpeded by the frailty of your being and the limitations of your species. You flit from one celestial body to the next, covering thousands of light-years of distance in seconds. You see millions of stars one moment, and a million more the next. All of them radiating beauty, reflecting light from one to another. What is this light? This is that same light being spoken into existence by the Almighty before time was set in motion. Its source, then, clearly being the great Elohim. The one who creates and fashions the wondrous elements of our universe out of His own greatness. The sheer magnitude of his greatness is too much for us to fathom, but is showcased in the world around us.

For this, we praise him. We--the living, speaking beings of this earth praise him with our mouths and our hearts. How then, do the stars praise him? These beauteous creations of His, without mouths, bodies or spirits? They exist as collections of dust, gases, and energy, reacting to their various elements and the ones around them; giving off heat, energy and light.
Light!
They reflect light to and from one another, casting it to and fro. And how do we praise him? We sing of Him, and speak of Him to one another, echoing our adoration high and low. We are alike. We are both created, and we both share the realization of his greatness with those around us.

How about it? ;)

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Photo by: Arina Borodina

Mosaic Canyon

Mosaic Canyon - Death Valley '10

Psalms 104

1 Bless the Lord, O my Soul. O Lord my God thou art clothed with honour and majesty. 5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed forever. 6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At they rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. 8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. 10 He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.

The marble-like walls of this canyon were formed by flash floods carrying debris of sand, rock and gravel. They are so cool and smooth to the touch, shaded by the steep canyon walls. There are no animals, and there are hardly any plants. Sharp winds cut through the winding passages every now and again; they settle as quickly as they arrive. There are so many different textures the deeper you travel amongst the cliffs. The walls are ribboned with different patterns and different shades of color. Standing at the base of these cliffs looking up at the cut out of sky, one feels an enormous sense of awe.

Lend me your imagination for a moment and I'll personify this geographical phenomenon.

I lay my palms on the towering rock walls to see what I might hear; they are stoic and obstinately silent. These ancient monuments, carved by time and nature, hold their tongue. They will not speak of the countless suns they've seen rise and set; of the streams that have carved out paths in their midst; of the ones who have crumbled at their sides, beaten down and worn away at their stubborn stance. They do not radiate life like trees and flowers, birds and other creatures. They remain after billions of years, still and silently exacting our awe. They intimately know the hand of the creator and the cycles He puts into motion, where we only see the work of Him in the world around us. They know and are reverentially silent.

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Photo by: Arina Borodina

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~Harmony