“
Tonight the sky was utterly black. Perhaps there was no moon tonight—a lunar eclipse, a new moon. A new moon. I shivered, though I wasn't cold.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
The bullying of citizens by means of dreads and fights has been going on since paleolithic times. Greenpeace fund-raisers on the subject of global warming are not much different than the tribal Wizards on the subject of lunar eclipses. 'Oh no, Night Wolf is eating the Moon Virgin. Give me silver and I will make him spit her out.
”
”
P.J. O'Rourke (All the Trouble in the World)
“
..and monogamy as rare as an earthen eclipse.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Fairest (The Lunar Chronicles, #3.5))
“
Lunar Eclipse doesn't that sound like a car you can only drive at night?
”
”
Stanley Victor Paskavich
“
Surely, as a rule, some little bit of moonlight would filter through the clouds, through the clinks in the canopy of trees, and find the ground.
Not tonight. Tonight the sky was utterly black. Perhaps there was no moon tonight-a lunar eclipse, a new moon.
A new moon. I shivered, though I wasn't cold.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (New Moon (The Twilight Saga, #2))
“
Thoughts have power, influencing humanity's collective path. The difference between Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler lies, ultimately, in how they thought. A thought can change the world for the better—or damn it forever.
”
”
Diane Shauer (Battle of the Blood Moons)
“
the Maya knew the time taken by the moon to orbit the earth. Their estimate of this period was 29.528395 days – extremely close to the true figure of 29.530588 days computed by the finest modern methods.11 The Mayan priests also had in their possession very accurate tables for the prediction of solar and lunar eclipses and were aware that these could occur only within plus or minus eighteen days of the node (when the moon’s path crosses the apparent path of the sun).
”
”
Graham Hancock (Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization)
“
Whatever it is, it can’t possibly be as important as the Italian Concerto. Now let’s get to work.”
We work for three and a half hell-bent hours, until the keys are literally smeared with blood and my mind has been bleached to a glorious blankness, a lunar eclipse of the soul. The music is a castle I conjure around myself, a fortress of notes no feeling can storm.
”
”
Hilary T. Smith (Wild Awake)
“
Cinder gaped at her stepmother, her own anger eclipsed with a surprising jolt of pity. This woman was full of so much ignorance it was almost like she wanted to stay that way. She saw what she wanted, believed anything to support her limited view of the world. (…)Five years she had lived with this woman, and never once had she seen Cinder as she was. As Kai saw her, and Thorne and Iko and all the people who trusted her. All the people who knew her.
She shook her head, finding it easier than she’d expected to dismiss her stepmother’s words. “I’m done trying to explain myself to you. I’m done seeking your approval. I’m done with you.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4))
“
For with another part of his mind he felt the encroachment of a chilling fear, eclipsing all other feelings, that the thing they wanted was coming for him alone, before he was ready for it; it was a fear worse than the fear that when money was low one would have to stop drinking; it was compounded of harrowed longing and hatred, fathomless compunctions, and of a paradoxical remorse, for his failure to attempt finally something he was not going to have time for, to face the world honestly; it was the shadow of a city of dreadful night without splendour that fell on his soul.
”
”
Malcolm Lowry (Lunar Caustic)
“
I’m aware of the stereotype many liberals have about conservative Catholics. The former believe the latter don’t think—that conservative religious people don’t care about facts and rigorous inquiry. But my conservative Catholic parents were thinkers. Twice as often as my parents told their four children to go wash, they told us to go look something up. At our suburban tract house on Long Island in the 1970s, our parents shelved the Encyclopædia Britannica right next to the dinner table so we could easily reach for a volume to settle the frequent debates. The rotating stack of periodicals in our kitchen included not only religiously oriented newsletters, but also the New York Times and National Geographic. Our parents took us to science museums, woke us up for lunar eclipses, and pushed us to question our textbooks and even our teachers when they sounded wrong.
”
”
Alice Domurat Dreger (Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar's Search for Justice)
“
Somebody needs to explain to me why it is that the one thing your body can suddenly do well when you get old is grow hair in your nose and ears. It’s like God is playing a terrible, cruel joke on you, as if he is saying, “Well, Bill, the bad news is that from now on you are going to be barely continent, lose your faculties one by one, and have sex about once every lunar eclipse, but the good news is that you can braid your nostrils.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island)
“
Chopped up fairy wings, the heart of a narwhal taken during a lunar eclipse, spit from a consumptive.… Christ. Just drink it, will you?
”
”
Laura London (The Windflower)
“
The monkeys sit on soft rocks
Until a scream is released from their clocks
They stare into an abyss
Post photos of a lunar eclipse
Soul-filling moments
Consistently missed
”
”
Kelsey Webb (Sapling: The Beginner's Guide to the Art of Modern Poetry)
“
I am the darkness in the night that destroys everything you love. I am the light of a lunar eclipse. I am everything you fear and everything you want.
”
”
Zian Schafer
“
On rare occasions, we’ll still align. I will pass through your shadow and bask in your sunlight; my face awash in gold and red and I’ll remember the way things were. But lunar eclipses, they’re few and far between and they’re not enough to save us.
”
”
Stephanie Georgopulos
“
But when she was annoyed with me, she had a cold way of saying “Apparently” in answer to almost anything I said, making me feel stupid.
“Um, I can’t find the can opener.”
“Apparently.”
“There’s going to be a lunar eclipse tonight.”
“Apparently.”
“Look, sparks are coming out of the wall socket.”
“Apparently.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
“
Anyway, it's a pretty good story," I said. "You have to admit."
"Yeah?" He crumpled up the Kleenex, having dispatched the solitary tear. "You can have it. I'm giving it to you. After I'm gone, write it down. Explain everything. Make it mean something. Use a lot of those fancy metaphors of yours. Put the whole thing in proper chronological order, not like this mishmash I'm making you. Start with the night I was born. March second, 1915. There was a lunar eclipse that night, you know what that is?"
"When the earth's shadow falls across the Moon."
"Very significant. I'm sure it's a perfect metaphor for something. Start with that."
"Kind of trite." I said.
He threw the Kleenex at my head. It bounced off my cheek and fell on the floor. I bent to pick it up. Somewhere in its fibers, it held what may have been the last tear my grandfather ever shed. Out of respect for his insistence on the meaninglessness of life--his, everyone's--I threw it into the wastebasket by the door.
”
”
Michael Chabon (Moonglow)
“
From Babylon come some things that belong to science: the division of the day into twenty-four hours, and of the circle into 360 degrees; also the discovery of a cycle in eclipses, which enabled lunar eclipses to be predicted with certainty, and solar eclipses with some probability. This Babylonian knowledge, as we shall see, was acquired by Thales.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy)
“
That August, the day of the lunar eclipse—their daughters three and a half and two—Cam piled everyone in the truck to get the best view from the top of Hopewell Hill. “Maybe they won’t remember,” he said. “I just like to show them things.” This was what you did. You took your children out in the darkness to watch the moon disappear. You dissected coyote scat with them. You led your two-year-old down to the garden to press a handful of radish seeds into the soil and handed her the spatula to lick when you made chocolate pudding and turned the pages of Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day?, pointing out the animal characters and naming their jobs. You gathered autumn leaves, pressed them with an iron in between two sheets of wax paper, and taped them on the window, where you’d set an avocado seed in a glass of water to watch it sprout; and carried your three-year-old outside in your arms at night—her and her sister—to let them catch snowflakes. Who knew what they’d remember, and what they’d make of it, but the hope was there that if nothing else, what they would hold on to from these times was the knowledge of being deeply loved.
”
”
Joyce Maynard (Count the Ways)
“
No direct evidence yet documents Earth’s tidal cycles more than a billion years ago, but we can be confident that 4.5 billion years ago things were a lot wilder. Not only did Earth have five-hour days, but the nearby Moon was much, much faster in its close orbit, as well. The Moon took only eighty-four hours—three and a half modern days—to go around Earth. With Earth spinning so fast and the Moon orbiting so fast, the familiar cycle of new Moon, waxing Moon, full Moon, and waning Moon played out in frenetic fast-forward: every few five-hour days saw a new lunar phase. Lots of consequences follow from this truth, some less benign than others. With such a big lunar obstruction in the sky and such rapid orbital motions, eclipses would have been frequent events. A total solar eclipse would have occurred every eighty-four hours at virtually every new Moon, when the Moon was positioned between Earth and the Sun. For some few minutes, sunlight would have been completely blocked, while the stars and planets suddenly popped out against a black sky, and the Moon’s fiery volcanoes and magma oceans stood out starkly red against the black lunar disk. Total lunar eclipses occurred regularly as well, almost every forty-two hours later, like clockwork. During every full Moon, when Earth lies right between the Sun and the Moon, Earth’s big shadow would have completely obscured the giant face of the bright shining Moon. Once again the stars and planets would have suddenly popped out against a black sky, as the Moon’s volcanoes put on their ruddy show. Monster tides were a far more violent consequence of the Moon’s initial proximity. Had both Earth and the Moon been perfectly rigid solid bodies, they would appear today much as they did 4.5 billion years ago: 15,000 miles apart with rapid rotational and orbital motions and frequent eclipses. But Earth and the Moon are not rigid. Their rocks can flex and bend; especially when molten, they swell and recede with the tides. The young Moon, at a distance of 15,000 miles, exerted tremendous tidal forces on Earth’s rocks, even as Earth exerted an equal and opposite gravitational force on the largely molten lunar landscape. It’s difficult to imagine the immense magma tides that resulted. Every few hours Earth’s largely molten rocky surface may have bulged a mile or more outward toward the Moon, generating tremendous internal friction, adding more heat and thus keeping the surface molten far longer than on an isolated planet. And Earth’s gravity returned the favor, bulging the Earth-facing side of the Moon outward, deforming our satellite out of perfect roundness.
”
”
Robert M. Hazen (The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet)
“
Attention All Students, the following is a safety notice and we advise you take all of the information in this notification seriously. Tonight is the LUNAR ECLIPSE. All Fae will be struck by the urges of the moon and will be guided by their most base instincts and the truest desires of their hearts and flesh. As such, the faculty have made the following recommendations: 1. Remain alone in your rooms throughout the evening with the door locked. 2. Turn off your Atlases to avoid the temptation to send provocative messages to your fellow students via social media. 3. Take a sleeping draft or two to try and bypass the night without succumbing to the urges. 4. Make sure you have cast your monthly contraceptive spells so that when rules 1-3 fail to work you will not come crying to the faculty about unexpected pregnancies. Please try to remain safe and enjoy your evening. - Principal Nova.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (The Reckoning (Zodiac Academy, #3))
“
Perhaps the most influential person ever associated with Samos was Pythagoras,* a contemporary of Polycrates in the sixth century B.C. According to local tradition, he lived for a time in a cave on the Samian Mount Kerkis, and was the first person in the history of the world to deduce that the Earth is a sphere. Perhaps he argued by analogy with the Moon and the Sun, or noticed the curved shadow of the Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse, or recognized that when ships leave Samos and recede over the horizon, their masts disappear last. He or his disciples discovered the Pythagorean theorem: the sum of the squares of the shorter sides of a right triangle equals the square of the longer side. Pythagoras did not simply enumerate examples of this theorem; he developed a method of mathematical deduction to prove the thing generally. The modern tradition of mathematical argument, essential to all of science, owes much to Pythagoras. It was he who first used the word Cosmos to denote a well-ordered and harmonious universe, a world amenable to human understanding.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
“
The Scientific Revolution was revolutionary in a way that is hard to appreciate today, now that its discoveries have become second nature to most of us. The historian David Wootton reminds us of the understanding of an educated Englishman on the eve of the Revolution in 1600: He believes witches can summon up storms that sink ships at sea. . . . He believes in werewolves, although there happen not to be any in England—he knows they are to be found in Belgium. . . . He believes Circe really did turn Odysseus’s crew into pigs. He believes mice are spontaneously generated in piles of straw. He believes in contemporary magicians. . . . He has seen a unicorn’s horn, but not a unicorn. He believes that a murdered body will bleed in the presence of the murderer. He believes that there is an ointment which, if rubbed on a dagger which has caused a wound, will cure the wound. He believes that the shape, colour and texture of a plant can be a clue to how it will work as a medicine because God designed nature to be interpreted by mankind. He believes that it is possible to turn base metal into gold, although he doubts that anyone knows how to do it. He believes that nature abhors a vacuum. He believes the rainbow is a sign from God and that comets portend evil. He believes that dreams predict the future, if we know how to interpret them. He believes, of course, that the earth stands still and the sun and stars turn around the earth once every twenty-four hours.7 A century and a third later, an educated descendant of this Englishman would believe none of these things. It was an escape not just from ignorance but from terror. The sociologist Robert Scott notes that in the Middle Ages “the belief that an external force controlled daily life contributed to a kind of collective paranoia”: Rainstorms, thunder, lightning, wind gusts, solar or lunar eclipses, cold snaps, heat waves, dry spells, and earthquakes alike were considered signs and signals of God’s displeasure. As a result, the “hobgoblins of fear” inhabited every realm of life. The sea became a satanic realm, and forests were populated with beasts of prey, ogres, witches, demons, and very real thieves and cutthroats. . . . After dark, too, the world was filled with omens portending dangers of every sort: comets, meteors, shooting stars, lunar eclipses, the howls of wild animals.8 To the Enlightenment thinkers the escape from ignorance and superstition showed how mistaken our conventional wisdom could be, and how the methods of science—skepticism, fallibilism, open debate, and empirical testing—are a paradigm of how to achieve reliable knowledge. That knowledge includes an understanding of ourselves.
”
”
Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress)
“
Franklin also combined science and mechanical practicality by devising the first urinary catheter used in America, which was a modification of a European invention. His brother John in Boston was gravely ill and wrote Franklin of his desire for a flexible tube to help him urinate. Franklin came up with a design, and instead of simply describing it he went to a Philadelphia silversmith and oversaw its construction. The tube was thin enough to be flexible, and Franklin included a wire that could be stuck inside to stiffen it while it was inserted and then be gradually withdrawn as the tube reached the point where it needed to bend. His catheter also had a screw component that allowed it to be inserted by turning, and he made it collapsible so that it would be easier to withdraw. “Experience is necessary for the right using of all new tools or instruments, and that will perhaps suggest some improvements,” Franklin told his brother. The study of nature also continued to interest Franklin. Among his most noteworthy discoveries was that the big East Coast storms known as northeasters, whose winds come from the northeast, actually move in the opposite direction from their winds, traveling up the coast from the south. On the evening of October 21, 1743, Franklin looked forward to observing a lunar eclipse he knew was to occur at 8:30. A violent storm, however, hit Philadelphia and blackened the sky. Over the next few weeks, he read accounts of how the storm caused damage from Virginia to Boston. “But what surprised me,” he later told his friend Jared Eliot, “was to find in the Boston newspapers an account of the observation of that eclipse.” So Franklin wrote his brother in Boston, who confirmed that the storm did not hit until an hour after the eclipse was finished. Further inquiries into the timing of this and other storms up and down the coast led him to “the very singular opinion,” he told Eliot, “that, though the course of the wind is from the northeast to the southwest, yet the course of the storm is from the southwest to the northeast.” He further surmised, correctly, that rising air heated in the south created low-pressure systems that drew winds from the north. More than 150 years later, the great scholar William Morris Davis proclaimed, “With this began the science of weather prediction.”4 Dozens of other scientific phenomena also engaged Franklin’s interest during this period. For example, he exchanged letters with his friend Cadwallader Colden on comets, the circulation of blood, perspiration, inertia, and the earth’s rotation. But it was a parlor-trick show in 1743 that launched him on what would be by far his most celebrated scientific endeavor. ELECTRICITY On a visit to Boston in the summer of 1743, Franklin happened to be entertained one evening by
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)
“
The government used to be able to coordinate complex solutions to problems like atomic weaponry and lunar exploration. But today, after 40 years of indefinite creep, the government mainly just provides insurance; our solutions to big problems are Medicare, Social Security, and a dizzying array of other transfer payment programs. It’s no surprise that entitlement spending has eclipsed discretionary spending every year since 1975. To increase discretionary spending we’d need definite plans to solve specific problems. But according to the indefinite logic of entitlement spending, we can make things better just by sending out more checks.
”
”
Peter Thiel (Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future)
“
Their [the crusaders of the First Crusade] growing conviction that they were operating in a supernatural context was heightened by the fact that, after a period of calm, the skies again became troubled, just as they began to move from Asia Minor into Syria. In early October 1097 a comet - one, incidentally, well-documented in Chinese and Korean records - was seen with a tail shaped like a sword. As the ground shook in the earthquake of 30 December the heavens glowed red and there appeared a great light in the form of a cross; this is possibly an early reference to 'earthquake lights'. On the night of 13 June 1098 a meteor fell from the West on to the Muslim camp outside Antioch. The night of 27 September seems to have been extraordinary, with an aurora so great that it was seen in Europe as well as in Antioch: it must have been visible over a large part of the northern hemisphere. On 5 June 1099 there was an eclipse of the moon as the crusade approached Jerusalem. These were interpreted as portents of a Christian victory; indeed it was said that had a solar, rather than a lunar, eclipse taken place on 5 June 1099 it would have forecast defeat.
”
”
Jonathan Riley-Smith (The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading)
“
… When I'm ready,
my uterus will lunar eclipse.
You could have been
my baby. I was almost your mother.
In the gap, I left you to fall–
jarred starlight, steaming.
”
”
Joanna C. Valente (Marys of the Sea)
“
Bones stared at the cheap melamine plate with an omelet, fruit bowl, and dry toast.
"Is something wrong?" Dr. Chu asked.
I have the stomach flu, sore throat, tooth abscess, migraine, allergy to gluten . . . . I never eat breakfast on Wednesdays or in closed rooms or during a lunar eclipse, especially in July or when I'm out of deodorant. . .
"I'm just not hungry.
”
”
Sherry Shahan (Skin and Bones)
“
At Chichen Itza in Mexico stand the ruins of a gigantic observatory that the Maya built, whose passageways are aligned with the sun, moon and stars. With this, and in conjunction with other aligned observatories, the Maya were able to predict lunar and solar eclipses with great accuracy as well as measuring the synodic cycle of Venus with a precision that has only been matched and realised in modern times.8
”
”
Bill Cooper (After the Flood)
“
Time. She had to go home. As soon as the lunar eclipse occurred in three weeks. Because if she stayed here, she would die. Either from the bullet in her back, or from the pain that was slowly sinking talons into her.
”
”
Shelly Thacker (Forever His (Stolen Brides, #2))
“
Con una solemnidad digna de tiras cómicas clásicas, Colón aprovecha su conocimiento de un inminente eclipse lunar. Varado desde hace ocho meses en la costa de Jamaica, ya no logra convencer a los indios de que le traigan comida gratis; los amenaza entonces con robarles la luna y, la noche del 29 de febrero de 1504, empieza a poner en ejecución su amenaza, ante los ojos aterrados de los caciques… El éxito es inmediato.
”
”
Tzvetan Todorov
“
Ibrahim, a male child of the Holy Prophet passed away. The Prophet was sad and grieved on account of his demise and tears trickled from his eyes involuntarily. Solar eclipse took place on the day the child died. The superstitious and mythloving Arabs considered the eclipse to be a sign of the greatness of the affliction of the Holy Prophet and said: “The sun has been eclipsed on account of the death of the son of the Prophet”. The Holy Prophet happened to hear these words. He mounted the pulpit and said: “The sun and the moon are two great signs of the Omnipotence of Allah and obey His orders. They are not eclipsed on account of the death or life of anyone. Whenever solar or lunar eclipse takes place offer signs prayers”. Having said this he dismounted the pulpit and offered signs prayers along with others.10
”
”
Jafar Subhani (Who Is Muhammad?)
“
Let’s get one thing straight at the beginning. A lunar eclipse simply will not do. You may have seen a partial solar eclipse, but neither will that do. The sun is such a monster that until a few minutes before totality the light from the sun blasts right around the disk of the moon and the Earth is little changed.
Annie Dillard wrote that the difference between a partial eclipse and a total one is the difference between kissing a man and marrying him.
Just so. So people search out totality, no matter how remote the spot. And so we have come to Svalbard.
- from Out in the Cold
”
”
Bill Murray
“
Suddenly, the Sun’s thin sickle of light breaks apart into an array of brilliant specks that dance and shimmer along the Moon’s jet-black rim. They are called Baily’s beads—the last rays of the vanishing Sun streaming through actual mountain valleys along the curved lunar surface.
”
”
Tyler Nordgren (Sun, Moon, Earth: The History of Solar Eclipses, from Omens of Doom to Einstein and Exoplanets)
“
There's a lunar eclipse late Friday." Alisha said. "I hope everybody has their emotional body armor ready. Things are about to get intense.
”
”
Lee Fishman (Mediums Guild)
“
223 amazing science facts, tidbits and quotes 223 is the number of lunar months in approximately 18 solar years, used by ancient astronomers to predict eclipses
”
”
Tasnim Essack (223 Amazing Science Facts, Tidbits and Quotes)
“
दूतो न सचरित खे न चलेच्च वार्ता पूर्व न जलिपतामिंद न च संगमोऽस्ति। व्योम्निसि्ंम रविशशिग्रहणं प्रशस्तं जानाति यो द्विजवर: स कर्थ न विद्वान् ।। 109 ।। Dooto Na Sancharit Khe na Challechch Vaartaa Poorvam Na Jalpitmidam Na Cha Sangamoasti. Vyomnismim Ravipshashigrahanam Prashstam Janati Yo Dvijavarah Sa Katham Na Viddvan. Neither a messenger could be sent to the sky not any communication could be established nor anyone told us about anyone existing there, still the scholars predict with great precision about the Solar and Lunar eclipses. Who would hesitate in calling them the very erudite scholars?
”
”
B.K. Chaturvedi (Chanakya Neeti)
“
Do not underestimate the beast who shadows you. He is the ultimate power, ruling over your lives and the lives of many others. Beware of his lies. The answer to your question will be revealed on the lunar eclipse. But when finding the truth, don't let the shadows take you. - Falling Star
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Ruthless Fae (Zodiac Academy, #2))
“
I frowned as flames erupted at the bottom of it, a tangle of blue and red fire. Above, I realised the mirror wasn’t blank at all. It pictured the night sky and at the heart of it was a shadowy moon which seemed to burn like embers. The words from the Devil card Astrum had sent to us came to mind. The answer to your question will be revealed on the Lunar Eclipse.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (The Reckoning (Zodiac Academy, #3))
“
With the approaching lunar eclipse, I'd feared this would happen. But now it was confirmed, that fear spread like a disease, gnawing into my bones. This can't be happening again.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Ruthless Fae (Zodiac Academy, #2))
“
Stardust made on the night of a Lunar Eclipse takes the traveller to the Shadow Realm. Those of pure blood can survive the transition...so you’re our lucky little vessels.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (The Reckoning (Zodiac Academy, #3))
“
The person outside the library probably had nothing to do with the king, Celaena told herself as she walked—still not sprinting—down the hall to her room. There were plenty of strange people in a castle this large, and even though she rarely saw another soul in the library, perhaps some people just … wished to go to the library alone. And unidentified. In a court where reading was so out of fashion, perhaps it was merely some courtier trying to hide a passionate love of books from his or her sneering friends. Some animalistic, eerie courtier. Who had caused her amulet to glow. Celaena entered her bedroom just as the lunar eclipse was beginning, and groaned. “Of course there’s an eclipse,” she grumbled, turning from the balcony doors and approaching the tapestry along the wall. And even though she didn’t want to, even though she’d hoped to never see Elena again … she needed answers. Maybe the dead queen would laugh at her and tell her it was nothing. Gods above, she hoped Elena would say that. Because if she didn’t …
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass)
“
The Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) understood what he was seeing at the time of a lunar eclipse: ‘The church says the earth is flat, but I know it is round for I have seen its shadow on the moon and I have more faith in a shadow than the church.
”
”
Christopher Knight (Who Built the Moon?)
“
A blood moon is the same as a lunar eclipse when the moon turns red. Four consecutive blood moons are called a tetrad. Before 1949 the convergence of four consecutive blood moons on Jewish holy days hadn’t occurred for 500 years, and it will not happen again for another 500 years.20 Over a very short time, God has been hanging an advertisement in the heavens and saying to us, “Look! I’m doing something very special here.” Again, the Bible told us this would happen.
”
”
Jimmy Evans (Tipping Point: The End is Here)
“
...it was only natural that this mutual connection between sea and observer be forged: they were kindred spirits. The same, however, could not be done with the implacable moon: that imperious stalwart, which agitated the currents and spurned its beholder. This aloof satellite was formidable, yet neurotic, and so in spite of its ferocity, its movements were simple to predict, thereby granting this fearsome creature a veil of placidity. Its magnitude of torque was easily outmatched by that forceful heave of fear portending any misalignment with its anticipated schedule of phases. It cycled through these on time and without hesitation, experiencing, all the while, a wide array of emotions in response to the dissatisfied countenance of the Master it served. And yet, these changes in mood remained prosaic and careful, dutiful to its Patron; thusly, betraying nothing of its own resentments or intentionality either to its dismissed observer or to its demanding Patron, divulging nothing even of the influence which it potentially wielded over the Patron Planet, but which, in its lunar insecurity, never reached full expression save for the idle touslings of liquid fur. Perhaps it was diffident or bashful—otherwise, it was simple and had little prevailing ambition. Its motives were immaterial, in fact, for its aspirations were easily eclipsed and often countermanded and so one could not help but anticipate in its withered mien a certain resignation, a retreat to introspection away from the gazes of those who mistook its surrender to deterministic forces as a duty held most solemn. To be sure, it was a specter oft-romanticized by dullard poets and priests who admired it for its calming reserve, its gentle wisdom in juxtaposition with the histrionic impatience of the sea: like a tired guardian and a screaming toddler with primacy afforded counterintuitively to the guardian.
What mattered more, in fact, was the subject of its influence: the willful and disobedient medium which spurned that hands that molded it. The moldings were more like jostles really and for a time they felt just and reasonable, but soon they came to confine and until verily there was no movement available that was not otherwise preordained by the will of the master.
The accursed moon!
”
”
Ashim Shanker (Inward and Toward (Migrations, #3))
“
The borders were soon defined, after all only a tiny country had to be established, without territorial claims or even a proper constitution, an intoxicated land with only two houses you can find in the dark, even during total eclipses (solar and lunar), and I know by heart how many steps it takes, going diagonally, to reach Ivan's, I could even walk there blindfolded.
”
”
Ingeborg Bachmann (Malina)
“
The Moon mounted the new day's sky, eclipsing the setting sun. The lunar orb that reigned over the land crowned the mountain range's peak like the tip of a sovereign's scepter.
”
”
Ines Johnson (Moonrise (Moonkind, #1))
“
Rapunzel knew exactly when her adopted birthday was coming because of her careful tracking and observation of the heavens. What had started out as a child's interest in the longer days of summer and shorter days of winter had progressed into a study that would have been the praise of any university professor. She knew all the constellations, of course; which ones came and went with the seasons (Orion), which ones stayed wandering the heavens forever (the Big Bear). She could predict when Jupiter would rise. She could predict some lunar eclipses. She had astrolabes and pendulums and squares and straightedges and compasses for measuring the precise height of an astral object above her window ledge.
”
”
Liz Braswell (What Once Was Mine)