Whew, what a relief! Tonight is supposed to be cloudy, so I needn't get up at 425 a.m. MDT to watch the Blood Moon total lunar eclipse.
Now isn't that a terrible thing to say? But admit it, how many times have you watched the media buildup to some celestial event -- be it an eclipse, a comet, or the Northern Lights -- only to be disappointed by the actual event? But like most people, I want the event to be interesting.
Why then are these celestial events such let-downs? We tend to forget that throughout the superstitious and religious period of our history, celestial events were truly frightening. That made them NEWS. But thanks to our scientific knowledge [*], celestial events have devolved into mere visual entertainment. As eye candy goes, they are rather slow and unimpressive. Compare them, as visual entertainment, to action scenes and special effects in a movie.
Perhaps you are dissatisfied with this grim truth. Maybe we can think of some other way to make such events interesting and significant. Consider this quote from John Stuart Mill's famous Autobiography:
The way around this deficiency is to admit that visual beauty is an insipid thing and to stop expecting too much from it. Even if it impacts you with force, it soon fades away -- sooner, in fact, than the total eclipse itself.
If nature isn't terrifying anymore and if mere prettiness is inadequate, in what direction should we move? I don't have a good answer for eclipses in particular, but maybe a bit of progress can be made for natural experiences in general. We need to find tricks-of-the-trade that make nature powerful and serious.
What about the link between music and the landscape? I am not talking about programmatic music, such as Beethoven's Symphony #6 or Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite" or anything that school teachers made us listen to in grade school. But there are times when a certain piece of music fits the character and mood of an outdoor experience. Finding such music and making the link could help to put mystery, excitement, and meaning back into nature.
Recently I have been camping and recreating with some other RVers. We have a history of "F Troop" style operations as a group. But the mood and motion of a group can float through your mind during an afternoon nap, after the event. There is something about those naps that seems like a "religious experience", even though your rational mind knows that it isn't. Lately I might have found the perfect piece of music that fits the mood of these group events: it must be a small ensemble piece, not a symphony and not a concerto. Still working on it.
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[*]An early step in this demystification was when philosophers noticed the circular shadow of the earth crossing the moon. You could only conclude that the earth was spherical. I believe Aristotle mentioned that, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. And yet the myth still exists that "people" thought the earth was flat until Columbus.
Now isn't that a terrible thing to say? But admit it, how many times have you watched the media buildup to some celestial event -- be it an eclipse, a comet, or the Northern Lights -- only to be disappointed by the actual event? But like most people, I want the event to be interesting.
Why then are these celestial events such let-downs? We tend to forget that throughout the superstitious and religious period of our history, celestial events were truly frightening. That made them NEWS. But thanks to our scientific knowledge [*], celestial events have devolved into mere visual entertainment. As eye candy goes, they are rather slow and unimpressive. Compare them, as visual entertainment, to action scenes and special effects in a movie.
Perhaps you are dissatisfied with this grim truth. Maybe we can think of some other way to make such events interesting and significant. Consider this quote from John Stuart Mill's famous Autobiography:
He (a certain English intellectual) saw little good in any cultivation of the feelings, and none at all in cultivating them through the imagination, which he thought was only cultivating illusions. It was in vain I urged on him that the imaginative emotion which an idea, when vividly conceived, excites in us, is not an illusion but a fact, as real as any of the other qualities of objects; and, far from implying anything erroneous and delusive in our mental apprehension of the object, is quite consistent with the most accurate knowledge and most perfect practical recognition of all its physical and intellectual laws and relations.This is a fine sentiment of Mill's. So why doesn't it inspire me? It seems so luke-warm and watered-down, so dull compared to the sheer terror about eclipses in a superstitious age. Thus it is not an adequate solution to the blandness of a modern, utilitarian, and scientific age.
The intensest feeling of the beauty of a cloud lighted by the setting sun, is no hindrance to my knowing that the cloud is vapour of water, subject to all the laws of vapours in a state of suspension;
The way around this deficiency is to admit that visual beauty is an insipid thing and to stop expecting too much from it. Even if it impacts you with force, it soon fades away -- sooner, in fact, than the total eclipse itself.
If nature isn't terrifying anymore and if mere prettiness is inadequate, in what direction should we move? I don't have a good answer for eclipses in particular, but maybe a bit of progress can be made for natural experiences in general. We need to find tricks-of-the-trade that make nature powerful and serious.
What about the link between music and the landscape? I am not talking about programmatic music, such as Beethoven's Symphony #6 or Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite" or anything that school teachers made us listen to in grade school. But there are times when a certain piece of music fits the character and mood of an outdoor experience. Finding such music and making the link could help to put mystery, excitement, and meaning back into nature.
Recently I have been camping and recreating with some other RVers. We have a history of "F Troop" style operations as a group. But the mood and motion of a group can float through your mind during an afternoon nap, after the event. There is something about those naps that seems like a "religious experience", even though your rational mind knows that it isn't. Lately I might have found the perfect piece of music that fits the mood of these group events: it must be a small ensemble piece, not a symphony and not a concerto. Still working on it.
_______________________________
[*]An early step in this demystification was when philosophers noticed the circular shadow of the earth crossing the moon. You could only conclude that the earth was spherical. I believe Aristotle mentioned that, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. And yet the myth still exists that "people" thought the earth was flat until Columbus.
Comments
Apparently, Paul Broun wasn't crazy enough for his district.
Jim
Yes, we can predict the weather pretty well but haven't scratched the surface of being able to control it and that's right here on our own planet.
If one takes the time to study this universe a bit, one quickly realizes we are here only through a combination of forces which came to be rather randomly and will someday go, as the only thing predictable in nature is that it is ever-changing.
We can't help but notice the power of the universe no matter whether we understand the forces behind it or not. It's just simply majestic.