As the day drew nigh to the time of the total solar eclipse today, the sun's brilliance was subdued as the moon moved over the face of the sun, and the outdoor light standards responded by turning on to cast their light against the oncoming 'night' that would last all of three minutes.
 

Our oldest son is the long-time archivist at the Royal Astronomical Society, an inveterate connoisseur of all things astronomical. He writes frequently of astronomical events and chronicles the history of astronomy, a true passion. He and our daughter-in-law planned to drive from Toronto to Kingston today to observe the uniquely rare event of the moon blocking the sun in a total eclipse. Totality in some parts of Ontario offers a rare glimpse of celestial majesty in motion. Here in Ottawa we were promised 98% totality.

The day began with clear skies of a pale-to-brighter azure, the sun ascendant this afternoon moving through a randomized cloud cover, but blazing, notwithstanding. We weren't wedded to the prospect of viewing the eclipse, although we were drawn to view the skies intermittently and more so as the climax neared. The sun was bright, hot and large in appearance this beautiful early spring day when the temperature rose to 18C.

 

Truth to tell, we were busy with routine during the day; me cleaning the house on the usual Monday, and Irving sitting down to tackle our income tax returns. Occasional breaks however, as we toured the backyard with Jackie and Jillie and mused about the heavenly features taking place in a grand show of nature's mysterious and ineffable design. We did note, however, that clouds were moving in to partially obscure the spectacle-to-come, but even with the clouds the sun was brilliantly resplendent.

Our stained glass windows that Irving designed and produced over the years glowed and then dimmed and muted as the exterior light retreated and darkness entered the house. The coloured glass seems to have a life of its own, conveying that 'life' to the creatures that often appear in the stained glass designs; birds mostly, but other animals as well.

 

Later, when all was done, the floors duly washed -- (I even pulled out the stove and washed the floor under it today), and because it was so late, put a Cornish hen in the oven to slow-cook in our absence -- we took ourselves out to the nature closest to us physically. Jackie and Jillie needed only their harnesses and collars, a departure from the weather conditions not long gone, when they had to be protected with coats and boots against the icy winds and snow-packed forest floor.

Another lovely circuit through the forest trails for us, on this warm spring day. Jackie and Jillie running ahead, sniffing everywhere, occasionally remembering we were bringing up the rear, and returning briefly before leaving us again to watch over them as they cantered here and there off the trail for short jaunts into the interior beckoned by some irresistible odour promising a revelation of some canine fascination.

 

 

There are signs beginning to appear of awakening in the forest. Blackberry canes already show little indications of midsummer fruit. Hazelnut shrubs have produced thick, long catkins preparatory to producing nuts that the squirrels duly appreciate in the summer months. Chickadees and nuthatches flittered through the evergreens. The season is progressing.

The wind lashed our faces as we walked up the street following Jackie and Jillie toward the ravine. A blustery, cold day, but we were dressed for it. A day dimly lit from the sky above encased once again in streaked grey clouds. Once we entered the ravine and clambered down into the forest, the wind shifted much higher as it rocked the spires of tree trunks high above in the forest canopy. 

Each morning when we awake, we hope to see a nice smooth layer of new snow fallen overnight covering the landscape. Obviously a trick of our subconscious knocking at the door of familiarity. At this time of year that's what should be happening, but hasn't been. Not yet, in any event, though it should be. So when we walk downstairs and look expectantly out the front door what taunts our eyes is the same old grim dark aspect of a desiccated garden, naked trees and a monochromatic dark grey landscape.

The winter equinox is a few weeks off yet, there's ample time for the weather to cooperate with our expectations. And this year, the stars align to produce what has been named a 'Christmas star'. A modern-day version of the bright star seen in the heavens some several millennia ago on the auspicious occasion of the birth of a Jewish child who would become a philosopher-king, an anointed messenger of the Almighty.

Here, if we're fortunate and the sky clears this evening we may see the Perseids, the Geminid meteor shower destined for our entertainment and awe at the sight of shooting stars. When our children were young and our oldest son was captured by astronomy he and I would sometimes go out into the backyard at night, lay out on deck chairs and watch for shooting stars. Occasionally we might see a satellite moving majestically across the sky. 

Anticipating that yesterday's all-day freezing rain event would have most surely melted whatever was left of the snow in the ravine, we made certain to pull cleats over our boots for traction on what we anticipated would be slippery trails. Our morning temperature was above freezing, allowing the precipitation that fell in the morning to sidestep snow and fall as rain, to our disgust. Surprisingly, the sun poked briefly around and through a few cracks in the armour of the steely clouds, but failed to assert a permanent presence.

 

While the wind moaned and groaned through the forest canopy, the temperature had dropped past freezing and the muck that resulted on the trails from all the rain of the previous day began to freeze and we soon realized that ample ice covered parts of the trail system, and were glad we'd worn cleats. Not so much on the ascents but on the descents, beyond useful.

 

We came across a few other people and dogs, mostly regulars, but for the most part the casual hikers who had been around and about in earlier months, trying to regain some equilibrium in a bid for normalcy in their lives -- valuing an opportunity for some fresh air and exercise, fed up with social distancing requirements -- have for the most part disappeared. 

 

One young man we've known for quite a while whose manner of speech always makes me think of a Tennessean but who isn't, and who likes to stand around chatting on those occasions when we meet, was out with his arthritic, sensible old black Labrador. Jackie and Jillie know this dog, so accept its close proximity, keeping their obnoxious behaviour to a minimum, just as the dog knows our two and following an initial greeting, more or less ignores them in preference to resting his painful old bones.

Last night, before bed when my husband took Jackie and Jillie out to the backyard, he called me out to have a look at the moon. The month's new moon, no less. The sky was almost clear after a rare no-rain day yesterday, there were some skimpy strings of white cloud, and there was the moon in all the grandeur it displays fully dressed. Above and to the right of the moon a bright star. Not a star, a planet, said he. Indeed, it's Saturn, the closest of the planets to be seen beside the August moon.

We knew that there would be rain the following day. Lots of it, since the 'chance' of rain was listed at 90%. So we weren't surprised to wake to a grey morning, unable to dispel the darkness of night thanks to a dense cloud cover. Which was steadily unleashing a light rain, leaving us to consider whether or not to launch ourselves into a ravine walk before breakfast, as usual.

We reasoned that the full  forest canopy would help keep us fairly dry, and we'd all wear rainjackets. Better early than making an attempt in the afternoon when the rain was destined to pick up strength and volume. So, suitably attired, off we went. Up our dusk-entrenched street, over to the ravine entrance where, looking into the forest interior the resemblance to a dark tunnel couldn't have been more apt.

But in there the patter of rain was notably reduced, so on we went, down the hillside into the ravine proper where we were surprised to see the low level of the water flowing through the creek, despite the rain. An odd little anomaly that we knew would be turned about by the end of the day. We were fairly surprised to see that a few others were out with their dogs. Larger dogs for the most part, and not geared out in rain gear since these are the rough-and-ready breeds more likely to head straight for the cooling waters of the creek even in winter before the freeze-up.

No one is inclined to stand around and talk. to everyone's relief, on such weather days. Waves and wry smiles more than suffice, as we pass, or see one another in the distance and continue on our way. Gayle, a long-time hiking companion who lives at the foot of our street came trundling by, umbrella in hand, shouting that she wished she'd gone out a tad earlier when the rain had been marginally lighter.

Although we were comfortable, and kept fairly dry given the circumstances, we decided that a shorter circuit would do us all very nicely this morning, rather than continuing on for the usual hour-and-a-half tramp through the trails. All the more so since as time passed the volume and strength of the rain was becoming more robust, though there were no complaints from either Jackie or Jillie, plodding along through small puddles.

The garden welcomed our return, its colours brilliantly lacquered, light from some source bouncing off the vegetation. Everything was getting a good soaking, the rain slanting directly toward the front of the house to penetrate the width of the porch, which doesn't happen very often. And then, in the afternoon, though there hadn't been any decline in the rain, it turned suddenly quite fierce.

The temperature slowly descended as well. In all, a dark, damp day. But the dark aspect and the pouring rain lend an impression of quiet comfort. And we enjoy watching the rain fall, deepening colours of the flowers even in the dusk-like atmosphere that prevails. And when the wind picked up and lashed a much heavier rain against both the back and the front of the house, it becomes hypnotically fascinating to watch such an increased volume lashing the windows, splashing down on the garden.

"A cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimize friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust."
University of California, Berkeley, Breakthrough Listen project

This is a bit of information that might appear to be useful to the astronomically challenged, unaware of such particularities. And it might go far to explaining in part the recent fascinated excitement in the community of astronomers, cosmologists and theoretical physicists at the appearance of a strange object in the sky above us. An unusual visitor, recognized in October as the unique and first appearance in our Milky Way Galaxy of an interstellar traveller. Indeed, a cigar-shaped rock formation hurtling a breakneck speed through space toward our sun, which the astronomical elite feel might be a Trojan Horse.

Really? Yes, really.

That some brilliant, technologically advanced civilization from another part of the Universe entirely has cloaked a furtive mission to scope out other diverse and scattered areas in galaxies not their own to assess other possible life forms. For what reason beyond curiosity and the inspired collection of intelligence simply to know, is beyond anyone's guess. But not beyond the hypothetical spinning of possible scenarios by someone of the colossal reputation for brilliance in intuiting the mysteries beyond our immediate space that can be posited by the ilk of Stephen Hawking.

In the prolonged and so-far unfruitful search to pick up any vestiges of other life through various modes of electromagnetic radiation and radio communication, it seems that Professor Hawking is dismayed, feeling that it would be more prudent for humans not to bring attention to their existence, lest other, far more advanced creatures than ourselves know of our presence and plot evil against us. As compared, for example, to the exuberantly optimistic attitude of the late, great Carl Sagan, who envisioned the possibility of humans and other lifeforms in a congress of beatified cooperation.

Stephen Hawking has a far less generous view of what a presumed meeting of another lifeform of intelligence equal to or surpassing that of humankind, with their human counterparts might be like. It is a moodily alarmed and alarming view, and while within the realm of possibility as far-fetched as it seems, might conceivably be reflective of the obverse of the old adage: a healthy mind in a healthy body. Carl Sagan, you see, exemplified that healthy mind in a healthy body. Imagine the anguish of a questing mind confined within a body inexorably failing.

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach."
"If so, it makes sense for them to exploit each new planet for material to build more spaceships so they could move on. Who knows what the limits would be?"
"We don't know much about aliens, but we know about humans. If you look at history, contact between humans and less intelligent organisms have often been disastrous from their point of view, and encounters between civilizations with advanced versus primitive technologies have gone badly for the less advanced."
"A civilization reading one of our messages could be billions of years ahead of us. If so, they will be vastly more powerful, and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria."

 

Mightn't it be possible, if extraterrestrial beings are so highly technologically involved that they could also be highly emotionally, socially evolved, and not given to using brute, lethal force against one another, let alone any other creatures in existence?