I had a pretty awesome, if not terrifying, dream last night. I was on a mountain in the forest and I had heard talk of bears in the area. I saw one out of the corner of my eye but never did encounter one. Eventually, I made my way down this mountain to a campsite with cabins. It was fairly populated ,maybe too populated, probably 500 or so people. A few minutes after being in the camp, I began to see 4 bears coming down the mountain with a vengeance. They were snarling and destroying everything in their path, including people. The bears were grizzlies and kodiaks. I knew this because of their color. I feared for my life but I was not harmed. The bears wore themselves down on the forest then the people. The carnage was brief but intense.
The solar eclipse just happened and it has me feeling cosmic and appreciative of our wondrous universe. It makes me feel pretty small and realize that most of my concerns are really trivial. I was amazed at how the quality of light changed and how the crickets began to chirp. Not to mention the crescent-shaped lights on the ground beneath the trees. We had a colander out viewing crescents on the patio because we had no solar glasses. Briefly, a cloud covered the sun and we looked up for a few seconds at the eclipse. Then some neighbors let us borrow their glasses. They are neighbors who for some reason we have never even spoken to, but people realize this is a rare event, so it makes us more human, more kind. This is an amazing time to be alive, with my daughter just turning 1 year old and now this truly inspiring event of nature. One can't help but feel gratitude and a sense of contentment. One of my favorite Carl Sagan quotes: “The surface of the Ea...