I saw a never-seen-it-before, human-made thing this afternoon. As I looked up into the clear, blue sky, three planes, all roughly the same distance from each other appeared to be (with their vapor streams trailing after them) creating a tight, equal-sided triangle in the sky.
For a very brief moment, that is. And then their flight paths took them each in their own direction.
It was magnificent. Like geometry in the sky. The length, the distance, the relationship to each other. It was a moment where they were each and all perfectly in place to form an equilateral triangle.
I was too late with the camera (those planes move rather quickly), but imagine three vapor trials intersecting perfectly in a triangle.
When I came home I went out back to watch the sun set over the lake (ahem, storm water management pond with a path around it) when a hawk landed in a tree near me. It stayed there a while, and I watched it awhile.
Then it flew off and as it did, I turned my head and attention back to the lake right as a great blue heron came gliding in and landing in the waters below.
Much flight.
geometry in the night sky
On a totally different, but kinda-sorta-if-I-stretch-it note, I had an experience about a dozen years ago that sticks with me to this day.
We were out at friend’s farm in a rural part of rural Central Pennsylvania. The summer’s night sky was brilliantly clear, the moon had yet to rise, and we all headed out for a walk in the meadow. Some of us we’re smoking. I might have been. Maybe not. I went through a somewhat dry spell when I quit smoking cigarettes. I dunno. Maybe a puff or two if I did. Not much. Pot isn’t hallucinatory, and I saw what I saw. That I know.
At one point, a guy named Ed pointed up to the sky and asked if I could see the triangle in the stars. After he gave me a tip or two, I could see it. There it was a perfect (or darn near seeming like one) bright triangle in the sky. Vega, Deneb and Altair.
I had a “whaaaa…?” kind of response and then something opened up in my vision; and that night my mind opened a window, and I started to see shapes in the sky. I saw a perfect square. I saw perfect arcs going across the sky. I saw a diamond and an X. I saw the six points of the atom clearly shaped in the Milky Way.
I kept thinking, “Has this been here the whole time and I never saw it? Has to be.” It was an exciting evening. For sure. One of those “I didn’t know what I didn’t know until I knew it” moments.
I have yet to see those shapes and such again. (Doesn’t mean never will, just not yet so far, though I hope to and soon.)
