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| William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. |
Music of the Spheres at St. Augustine Church in Kitsilano
I believe that what makes us human is our ability to associate (connect) disparate situations. I will admit that my cats Niño and Niña associate the word treats with what they will then get on my bed. But we humans can be more complex.
A perfect place for this sort of association, daydreaming, perhaps is being at a concert as I was last night. The program called Music of the Spheres steered me in the direction of all things astronomy of my life.
I remember going around 1952 to an estancia in the interior of the Argentine province of Corrientes. We were riding a Studebaker flat-bed truck at night. Such was the intensity of the Milky Way that I could have read a book. We spotted the Tres Marías (stars in the Southern Hemisphere).
At my boarding school, St.Edward’s High School in Austin Texas in the 10th grade I became interested (perhaps pushed by the Russian launching of their satellite the year before) in astronomy so I built a 4 inch reflector telescope. Three years later with my cousin Dolores, in Mexico City we would go to our roof, telling my grandmother we wanted to focus it on the moon. This was untrue as we spied the goings on of the clandestine whore house next to ours.
One of the musical works last night was Musical Parnassus Suite No. “Uranie” bu U.C.F. Fischer. I immediately thought of William Herschel
Uranus was the first planet found with the aid of a telescope. It was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel, although he originally thought it was either a comet or a star.
From there I transferred my thoughts to his son Sir John Herschel who invented photographic fixer.
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| Sir John Herschel - Photograph Julia Margaret Cameron |
Ultimately I thought of the wonderful photograph taken by astronaut William Anders: Earthrise is a photograph of Earth and part of the Moon's surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission.
In my thoughts about that photograph last night I had read an article in the Sunday New York Times hard copy (it crashes at my door on Saturday night).
In it there was this review of book for children that I found lovely. Because I have that subscription (now for 30 years) I am able to gift 10 articles for month with no pay wall. Here it is:
