(Dear Lord, how’s that for an alliteration BONANZA?)

This is a shared photographic assignment with Brigid. I look forward to seeing what she comes up with later today! (It’s Monday here in England, but it’s not in America… so I’m cheating a little!)

The brief was “It can be of a car, or a study of a certain part of transportation.”

I give you… the Mazda RX-8, under a rather lovely Sussex clear sky and full moon.

Another of my standing-in-the-middle-of-a-field photos. This one is special though, because it was taken during a blue moon!

You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘once in a blue moon’ before, but I doubt you know what it means! A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month — a rare occasion, because of the 28-day lunar cycle, and the only slightly-longer calendar month! Because of the 11-day difference between the lunar year and the calendar year, over 3 years those days accumulate until a ‘bonus’ full moon arrives! And that’s the blue moon.

It’s not actually blue, unfortunately, and the ‘blue’ prefix is apparently steeped in folklore. Anyway! Here’s the photo, taken around 3am. You can see just how bright this particular full moon was, helped by the fact that it’s very low in the sky. Many people don’t even believe me when I say it’s the moon! If you can’t see the grass, your monitor is too dark!

This is a post for Skywatch Friday.

This is a story about young love.

Young, embarrassing, sticky love.

Love that we thought safely hidden by the shadowy embrace of a moonless night. How wrong we were…

(An old photo of mine, taken during a blue moon)

You probably know, if you watch the news or have a friend that rejoices in telling you useless, geeky facts, there’s a very big meteor shower occurring right now: The Perseids! If you get a chance, go outside and look for them. It’ll peak at around 100 shooting stars per hour (though by the time you read this, they’ll probably have passed — so do it next year!)

(For more TMI this Thursday, hit up Lilu’s blog!)

This story takes place almost ten years ago, in August, during the Perseid meteor shower. I was 18 and drunk and dizzy with the affections of a certain girl. She was 15 and perky. And lavishing me with lingering looks and touches. It was only a matter of time before things got out of hand.

We barbecued and she laughed at my little jokes. We strolled at dusk through beautifully-lit woodland and she walked beside me, catching my eye and smiling. And when the night’s festivities were finally through and we settled down on the castle’s lawn to rest and sleep, she lay very close to me.

By most measures we had a romantic night that could only lead in one possible, carnal direction… right?

Wrong.

I failed to tell you that this was a party. We were 20 friends having the night of our lives.

I failed to tell you that she was also in a relationship. With my cousin.

But I was young and horny… and she was even younger and even hornier… and you know how I have a thing for pretty young girls…

So there we are, under a blanket, surrounded by a big group of our friends.

We’re all looking to the heavens and counting shooting stars. Occasionally someone tries the classic: ‘There! Over there!’ which of course, by the time you’ve looked, it’s gone. Minutes pass, meteors perish with a dazzle and our chatter slowly dies down as the magic becomes mundane. Sleep begins to take hold when her hands suddenly fine mine.

A firm grip and a meaningful, deliberate squeeze that speaks much more than a spoken word ever could.

My fingers trace teasing, tantalising designs on her palm and wrist.

Her body moves fractionally closer but the tiny increase in body temperature is palpable.

My fingers continue their gentle slide along the smooth underside of her arm.

Her breath warms the side of my neck and then, as my fingers lightly tickle her she shudders, her head dropping to my collar bone.

My hand moves from her shoulder and up her neck, under her ear and she bites me, she bites my neck hard.

My whimpering is only just audible but of course I look around, nervous that we’re being watched, that someone might’ve spotted us — but no, everyone seems to be asleep or looking at the meteor shower. Her bite has become a soft kiss and yet again I can feel her hot breath on my neck. She shakes — with nerves? — as my hands encircle her waist and pull her closer, my concern for eavesdroppers and voyeurs diminishing by the second.

Her body pushes closer and I can feel just how hot she is. She squirms as my fingers tease her waist and hips. With a hard kiss on the lips I smother a moan as my arm and hand and fingertips slide yet further.

Craving her flesh I hastily pull down my pants and undress her with my spare hand until she’s almost naked; bare enough that neither of us feel restricted. My fingers then find their mark and she rolls on top of me, her body convulsing, her hips grinding against mine.

This was a stupid move for an obvious reason: I’m fairly certain our foreplay had been heard already but our friends, in a moment of true Britishness, had decided to ignore it. But that wasn’t all. When I’d rolled onto my back there’d been a quiet click, a terse snap. Our small and sweaty under-blanket world was instantly illuminated in blinding white light. Someone had brought a huge torch, just in case of emergencies.

Those that were still watching the meteors turned to look. Those asleep were woken by the kerfuffle. In a truly Austin Powers moment they all saw our mid-thrust silhouette. There were screams from the girls and cheers from the boys.

To this day, I’m told that my silhouette was very generous.

When I started taking photography seriously I shot, almost exclusively, night-time landscapes. Believe it or not, I actually learnt around Washington D.C. — back in 2002 I could be found tramping around the US capital at two in the morning trying to catch the perfect photo. I took a killer photo of the Watergate complex — one of my favourites of all time! — but about 3 years ago I lost it. My hard disk died. Sucks.

But anyway, for about 2 years I took lots and lots of at-night landscapes. Some industrial (check this one from university), some urban, but mostly very-long-exposure shots of trees and fields to bring out the stars, or give the clouds a dreamy, smooth appearance. And then one day… I stopped!

And then last night, after 5 years… I started again, afresh! You can see the results below. A little note: I’m not going to give away all the secrets, but the colours in the photos are ‘true’. When you play with long exposures you can achieve some pretty startling effects! To the naked eye the colours would be no where near as intense. But the point is: they haven’t been altered; it’s just the magic of photography!

(If your monitor is setup correctly you should be able to see the shadow of the tree, thrown by an almost-full moon! Also, there are many more stars in the full-size version (if you bought a print you would see ALL of them).)

(Really, I’m not cheating with the colours. Note the stars — is that the Big Dipper? And would that make it Polaris at the top of the frame?)

Darkness.

Enigma.

Secret.

Curiousity.

Surprise.

Paranormal.

Superstition.

Rapture.

Riddle.

Myth. Magic. Mystery.

* * *

The definition of mystery, though multi-faceted, is a good place to start:

Anything that arouses curiosity or perplexes because it is unexplained, inexplicable, or secret.

That [which] is not fully understood or that baffles or eludes understanding; an enigma.

But it goes further. I’m not the only one that has noticed the prevalence of mysticism in contemporary civilisation:

The skills, lore, or practices that are peculiar to a particular activity or group and are regarded as the special province of initiates.

A religious truth that is incomprehensible to reason and knowable only through divine revelation.

An incident from the life of Jesus, especially the Incarnation, Passion, Crucifixion, or Resurrection, of particular importance for redemption.

The derivation is even more interesting:

From Latin mystērium, from Greek mustērion, secret rite, from mustēs, an initiate, from mūein, to close the eyes, initiate.

So you can see, the concept of mystery is old and likely prehistoric, pre-dating all forms of modern civilisation. Though Christianity is the only religion mentioned by name in the definitions, all theistic religions rely solely on mystery as their driving force; their ‘hook’, if you will. That’s why those few that actually communicate with God (or gods) are referred to as ‘mystics’ — they’re dealing with mysterious, inexplicable, unprovable phenomena. Gods are mysteries, in other words.

The fundamental axiom of all advanced lifeforms can be generalised as ‘What’s around the next corner?’ On a low-level it might be as simple as finding new hunting grounds; for humans it might as complex as finding a new partner, a new job — either way, it’s about moving. Not necessarily forward or back, but moving. There are higher concepts but at the end of the day it’s exploration and horizon-hunting that really does it for us; what really satisfies us.

Why then are we so damn addicted to mystery? Mystery is the polar opposite of exploration, science, truth. But we embrace it! We find comfort in the not-knowing. We set out on epic journeys to seek out new continents and new civilisations, all the while seeking solace in the gods that illumine starlit skies. There’s something about that which we do not know.

And these mysteries will forever remain because we don’t try too hard to solve them. No matter how hard we try, a mystery remains just beyond the reach of our grasping fingertips — or rather, we don’t stretch our hands too far in case we actually reach the mystery. The moment we close our fingers and find it to be nothing more than insubstantial smoke and deceptive mirrors — we shatter. Our world-view contorts and shifts and finally buckles under its elusive enormity. The shattered fragments of mystery lay limp and unravelled between our fingers. There’s nothing there. There never has been. There never will be.

Gosh.

Why do we keep reaching? Why do we raise our hands to the sky in search of salvation and heavenly oases?

Why does it hurt so much when we find out that a mystery is really nothing more than random chance or laws of physics? Because we’re rational creatures; we feast on order, reason. For every effect we must attribute a cause.

Someone somewhere once prayed to the very first heavenly and inexplicable body: the stars. The constellation of Orion perhaps. ‘Let tomorrow’s hunt be a success’ he prayed. And you know what? It was. The hunt was a rave success. Forever after, he prayed to the stars.

Then one day, sometime in the near future, the hunt wasn’t a success. In fact, some of the hunters were gored by the wild boar and died. So of course he prayed harder. What other option was there?

(I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have ’shooting’ and ‘gasm’ in the same sentence. I can’t really call it a ‘meteorgasm’ for obvious reasons. Say it out loud… go on… Loud enough for anyone nearby to overhear you.)

Bit of a smorgasbord of photos this week. It’s winter, so everything happens really quickly — when the sun’s out, it’s beautiful, but five minutes later it can be dismal and grey and rainy. The sun is setting at 3:50pm or something crazy — when you wake up between 12 and 1pm, that makes the apparent length of days very short. Fortunately I have these blog-writing sessions to add structure to my life, otherwise I might hibernate or something…

I’ve been listening to Marvin Gaye again, almost non-stop. I think it’s turning into some kind of addiction, some kind of need – I haven’t put a song on ‘repeat’ since I was 16, but I must’ve listened to ‘Please Stay‘ 25 times in the last few days. It has only avoided tonight’s playlist because I’ve discovered another great album by Gaye called Here, My Dear. But I digress…  as I alluded to yesterday, I should have a (dare I say it) photo shoot with a cute girl at the end of the week. Little does she know just how easy these photos are going to be, because she’s stupendously beautiful and photogenic. But hey, I need the confidence-boost, the ego-stroking, so that in the future I can take photos of ugly people!

Big mish-mash of photos today then: the meteor shower of December 12-14 (Geminids), an ‘out-take’ from 52 weeks, and a couple of ‘geometric experiments’.  I’ve been trying to catch meteors for a few years now, but it’s hard here in south England. Lots of light pollution (I have an airport very close by). Then there’s the matter of clouds and full moons and all that jazz — this year was meant to be the best ever for Geminid sightings, but I was still hampered by cloud and sub-zero temperatures.

Yes, I stood outside for about three hours, and all I got was three photos. I couldn’t feel my toes for about two hours after I came back inside (it was the coldest night of the year so far… brr! ice on my boots!) They’re not even that great photos, but I’ve included a couple in today’s Shooting Stargasm.

The geometric photos are just… experiments. I liked the light, and I’m fast learning that I should just TAKE PHOTOS when there’s any kind of light to be had, otherwise I might not get another chance before another Tuesday Photogasm comes around. I’m also coming to terms with the fact that I might be a very good ‘available light’ photographer. It’s dawning on me that this may indeed be the case… (buy my photos, because I have a nagging sensation that they’ll double in price by this time next year).

Enjoy the photos! Think of me freezing my rapidly-gangrenous nuts outside just for the art.

As always, hover over each image for specific notes.

(Admire Canis Major on the far left! Two stars of Orion’s Belt are just visible)

Phew! That was a rather eclectic mix. Now I’m going to shave off my Hitler beard and think of something disturbing for Thursday.

You probably know by now that I’m a bit of a pragmatist. I don’t totally discount the possibility of the paranormal, and pragmatism is a little too strict really, but I’m definitely of the scientific, that-which-can-be-proven mindset. I think there’s more to life than eight decades of faffing about and then decomposing in the ground. I just think it might be a little premature to assume we have a soul, an entity tethered to us in some indescribable, untenable way.

I don’t rule out the possibility of the soul, the spirit or gods, because that would be stupid. How can you claim something without proof? I sometimes wonder about those scientists and cartographers that declared our Earth to be flat. Were they sane? Were they frickin’ scientists? How about the shaman and philosophers that decreed that gods reside in the cosmos — or better yet, that stars are actually gods? Did they just pull that kind of stuff out of their ass, or did it really make sense back then? When did science actually become science, i.e. empirical? [That's another topic for another day I think.]

This is one of those situations where I wish I could be more objective. From my seat (surrounded by three computers and four screens) of power, I can glance back to the dawn of modern civilization, and scry forward to some crazy, potential futures. Were the philosophers of Athens graced with such foresight or hindsight?

How many scientists, philosophers or engineers had ideas beyond their time? Leonardo da Vinci is one example, but I can’t think of many others. Our thoughts are generally held back by the framework that supports the body and mind: society and culture. Is a tribal elder going to contemplate cryogenics? No. Is Aristotle going to think about superconducting super colliders that expose the base units of existence itself? No. If Jesus was born in the 1600s, would Christianity occur? No.  Eminent thinkers are of their time and very rarely anything more.

And then there’s me, and any of my contemporaries that stop to think about the future. We’re in a position now where we can actually think about what the future might bring with some measure of accuracy. We’re about to finally get a glimpse of the universe’s building blocks. Science, at its most basic form, transforms things we don’t know into things we do know. We point a camera into deep space to find out what’s there — we split an atom to find out what’s inside. From the outside, with our weak human eyes, there’s nothing to be had from either, but science proves otherwise. The most basic action in science is measuring, quantifying. Until something is seen, it doesn’t exist: electrons didn’t exist until we measured them and their flow.

What if one day we can point some kind of imaging device at a fellow human and see their soul?

Why is that a totally crazy idea?

Right now, God and the soul can only be experienced through some kind of internalisation — through the mind’s (…) eye. Why do miracles and divine inspiration (or the deification thereof) occur only within our head? Will we one day be able to see those images and feel those experiences with some kind of artificial device? And if we can’t, why not?

Is it because the god, the spirit, your soul doesn’t actually exist?

You have two possible answers:

a) One day, we will be able to see the soul and interact with it, without the brain. We’ll be able to photograph it, stretch it, test it. The inexorable march of science means that eventually everything in the universe will be ours to play with.

And now, as we live in a universe with laws, where science rules supreme, there must be the other option:

b) The soul doesn’t exist. Gods don’t exist. They are both constructs of an incredibly powerful machine — the brain.

I wish the fellows over at CERN would hurry up and smash some protons together in that large collider of theirs. I really want to know the extent of these three dimensions we inhabit.