crepuscular

Plenty of  animals become more active during the twilight of dawn and dusk (plants do too if we count such flowers as the yellow evening primrose that opens its flower about the time we lose our sun over Whitman’s Rough).  Mountain lions are more active then.  I am not.

But I do regard these times as sacred, and I’d like to think that’s the reason for my increased inactivity at dawn and dusk.

When we are down in the little canyon, we don’t get early morning or evening sunrises or sunsets.  We get their echo, though.

            The eastern wall of sandstone bluff, juniper, mesquite, and cedar elm the other side of the creek reflects the sunset we cannot see, and the limestone and oak hillside west of the homesite reflects the sunrise we cannot see.  These rocky bluffs relay for us the story of our sun’s activity near the distant horizons. 

            The echo of light means that we see direct sunrise light and sunset light a small bit of time later than the actual event, same as an echo sounds out a story that is already history.  But at 180,000 miles per second, and with the distance from the Great Live Oak to either bluff being about one eighth of a mile, who’s counting?  (744,000^th of a second late—that’s about how long after the original sunlight passing horizontally over our heads takes to reach the eastern bluff and ricochet to the back wall of our eyes.)

            Twilight.  We learn there is such a thing as “civil twilight” (that period of time in the morning or the evening when the sun is no more than six degrees below the horizon), “nautical twilight” (when the sun is between six and twelve degrees below the horizon and the horizon itself is no longer visibly defined), and “astronomical twilight” (when the sun is between twelve and eighteen degrees below the horizon and the light of the sun no longer contributes to the illumination of the sky).  So if actual sunset occurs at 7:56 p.m., for instance, then civil twilight happens at 8:21 p.m., nautical twilight at 8:50, and astronomical twilight at 9:19.  (Whoever said beautiful things couldn’t be measured probably meant that the thing and its beauty are separate things, a rather silly notion.  As if a thing can exist without any description.)

            And we continue to measure the level of the pond as it falls daily during this drought.  During the second week of February I pounded in a short rod into a dark gray mud.  At that time, the skin of the pond touched about six inches above the mud in the southern shallow end.  Two days ago, the top of the pond touched dry land about six feet away from the measuring rod.  So the fluctuating level of a body of water can be measured by a vertical rod, either in the rising and falling of waters’ top up and down the rod, or in the waters’ retreat from the entire rod itself.  Last night we received the first rains in a very long time.

            But we continue to measure just about everything out at The Creek, including the depth of life we experience.  That is measured by the heightened sense of awareness.  And awareness does not come automatically.  You begin by watching yourself see what surrounds you.  This self-awareness quickly gives way to the Other, whether it’s the wavy fossil remains of an ancient sea plant or the dusty stamen of a hidden flower or the white bone-flakes that comprise the matrix of a large mammal’s desiccated scat.  You rise early in the day to find that the Other has never been asleep, and you linger in the dusky end of day until you lose sight of any details but the blinking taillight of a mating firefly and the steadier white light of a distant galaxy both of which shine upon the open eye or the closed eye with equal concern but with quite unequal effect. 

It’s that effect that stills something within us during the opening and the closing of the day, and so we become less active and more alive.

The official time of sunset on the day of these photos was 7:56 p.m.  At 7:20 p.m. the first of the photos was taken.  We'll try to get some better photographs of this transition.  On this evening, the western sky was too hazy with oak pollen and west Texas dust and ash from grass fires. 

Shadow-rise:  7:20 p.m. 

Shadow-rise: 7:25 p.m. 

Shadow-rise: 7:30 p.m. 

Among the Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest, the chief of the pueblo was often known as the cacique, and it was this religious man's job to watch the sun.  He might position himself on a top adobe home well before astronomical twilight in the morning and late into the night at the other end of the day.  He could watch the sun rise between two distant mesas or set over a lone piñon pine and know the day of the year or the time for planting or holding a ceremony.  He was clock, calendar, chief, priest, and eye of the people. 

 Guaicaipuro, a celebrated cacique.