Mono Monday : : Curves

What could possibly be curvier than a full moon? And since it kept me awake last night and I finally gave up and looked out the bedroom door and took this shot, I might as well use it. This was a hand held shot....I leaned back against the house, braced my elbows against my body, held my breath and went for it....

I wish I could have gotten it rising above a beautiful mountain peak or perhaps with a bird flying in front of it, but I was pretty amazed at the detail that showed up when I adjusted the light and cropped my shot a bit, and decided it deserved to stand on its own. 

I am always struck by the immensity of the heavens, the mind numbing concept of infinity and the ultimate scary question of how I  fit into it all. I once asked an astronomer friend how she dealt with this and she said, very pragmatically that she didn't try. She just concentrated on her small portion of the universe. She likened it to studying the shells along a bit of shoreline rather than looking at the entire ocean. Just to put it into perspective, however, her particular focus of study is a distant galaxy. She was waiting for time on the Atacama telescope in Brazil to get a good look at it!

On that scale of things, the full moon becomes quite approachable and friendly. The fact that all those hills and craters are so clearly visible without a telescope is somehow comforting, even though it is said that hospital emergency rooms and police departments are always busier when there is a full moon. People all over the world are out  photographing it or gazing at it or being kept awake by it or maybe taking moonlight walks or even being driven crazy by it, but the moon still seems like a presence that unites us by the very fact that it shines on all of us...

Thanks to 60plus for hosting...I had the wrong tag but I think I've fixed it now...sorry :-(