consider the stars

Despite what you may have heard about the weather in Ireland we do experience an occasional clear night! And when that happens it is hard to resist the desire to go outside, even if only to stand at our front gate and gaze at the stars over Gallows Hill. And sometimes, with photographer friends, I get to go to truly ‘dark sky’ areas and attempt to capture the majesty of the heavens.

To stand on the Causeway stones or on a remote headland in Donegal and look up at the canopy of stars is both inspiring and humbling. It is healthy for us humans to feel our relative smallness and yet the amazement that while we know the stars are there, they don’t know we are here! Significance is not a necessary property of size.

The landscape by moonlight is mysterious and surprising. And at these northerly latitudes there is sometimes the opportunity to witness the grand dance of the Aurora Borealis.