Well, due to the extreme nature of yesterday, today was deemed a “resting day.” And, rest is exactly what we did. Right up to about 5:30.

We read our books and caught up on email and I did several loads of wash and . . . rested. Very unexciting, but oh so necessary.

At 5:30 we emerged from our little cabin and went in the direction of pizza. We found a wood fired pizza place that was excellent.  Just what we needed to cap off a resting day.

But, wait! There’s more. After dinner we drove up to Arizona’s Snowbowl, just to see it and see the magnificent views. At over 9,000 feet above sea level we thought we should be able to see something. We did see some deer along the road, and several sun worshipers at the summit sitting on rocks and watching the sunset. I was able to capture a picture, but the sun was so brilliantly beautiful it made photography almost impossible.

As we came down the mountain we made a right turn and went back up Mars Hill Road to the Lowell Observatory. It was a perfectly cloudless night and we knew they would have their telescopes open for public viewing.

We were not disappointed. There were four different opportunities to view the heavens through a telescope. I viewed the moon again. It is still almost incomprehensible to see the moon so distinctly as one can through a powerful telescope! Since this was a different telescope than the other night, I asked again if I might take a picture. And, this is what I got. It’s so amazing. I actually SAW the moon – just like this.

We also got to view the twin stars named Alberio, that are so close together they look like one star to the naked eye; M-13, a great cluster of about 500,000 stars; as well as Mars; Saturn; and M-11, another cluster of stars in our galaxy. The most shocking view for me tonight was Saturn. I could see the rings of Saturn! Actually SEE the rings of Saturn!

It certainly gives one pause to see the heavens so closely. And to know that the light that we are seeing is thousands and thousands of years old. These same heavenly bodies, with the same twinkling lights are what our ancestors saw when they looked up at the sky. Our forebearers may not have seen them as we saw them tonight, but the stars are one thing that has remained constant in our changing world . . . and they are constantly changing!

These same stars and planets lit the heavens when the peoples of Walnut Canyon, Wupatki, Tuzigoot and Canyon de Chelly built their homes and raised their children. The same stars. It makes me wonder if it may be the heavens that bind us together in experience and humanity – not how we are so unique or different, but in how much over all the centuries, we are actually the same. We are just small human creatures making a life as best we can under the light of the moon and the stars that guide us and grace us with two unerring principles of constancy and change.