Last night, the Taurid meteor shower peaked.
The earth circles the sun, and in regular intervals it travels through streams of particulate that were left by comets long ago. That particulate burns up in the atmosphere and turns into shooting stars from our vantage point. Every August, we move through the trail of breadcrumbs left by a chunk of ice and rock and one of those trails is called the Perseid meteor shower. A few years back, I had a life-altering night while my mind was roiling with fungi, fun guys, and a few half-wild cats. Out away from light pollution you can see the Milky Way so clearly, the backbone of the night. And when the Perseids are sprinkling the planet with their fairie dust, they slash across that maroon-purple galactic webbing with stark white bolts. Look up, anytime. You’ll see a shooting star in seconds. A half-wild cat meows, telling you to look up. You do and a sparkling streak tears over the heavens. Thanks, kitty. Good lookin’ out.
In November, we pass through the trail of a different comet, and this event is called the Taurid meteor shower. It peaked last night. Great, greenish missles dart straight over head. The heavens are alight. The predictable progression of the constellations is interrupted by a peppering of chaos.
It was cloudy as fuck. The Taurids were completely hidden behind rainclouds.
And while this November night was particularly dark, I sat under a blanket with the woman I love. My apartment was warm. We relaxed on a big lumpy couch and made each other laugh in between kisses. The television was on, but it was background noise.
She lives far away, by a lake that’s like an ocean. She works at a lighthouse there. I live pretty far inland. I work at a place that gives you tools to move dirt around.
I was playing with her hair and I gave her a smooch and said “I’m gonna go have a smoke.”
I donned my black winter jacket and stepped outside. November is the mother of winter and her nights are so intimately black. A rainshower in this season feels so close. I descended the stairs to my smoking spot. I struck my lighter and illuminated a little halo next to my face to light the Marlboro 27.
I drew in a lungful, and then as I exhaled I noticed an owl in a nearby tree.
I have a maple tree that I park my car under, and it is the closest tree to me when I’m out smoking. I see it every day. Its little helicopter seeds hit my windows and excite my cats. The owl was sitting in that tree. It was maybe twelve feet away from me.
I froze for a second. Looked harder, and was sure it was an owl. Probably a juvenile barn owl. It was small. It saw me look at it, and it looked at me back.
We made eye contact for a few moments. His black eyes connected right to my blues. I thought of wisdom, gnostic sophia, omens. Is there an omen when an owl visits you? No, I think that’s a raven. Widom, travelling bird. What brings you here? What can we teach each other?
The predator bird sat mostly still, looking back at me. “It’s a good idea to eat mice!” he seemed to say.
The Taurid burned scars into the night, shielded from my view by a blanket of clouds. The woman I love was upstairs, in a cube of warmth and light. The owl and I looked into each others eyes on a rainy November night.
” I think it’s obvious that we are all made of the same thing,” I said, trying to play the poet, ” And to put one’s self at the center of the universe is a mortal sin, and the only sin.”
The owl’s eyes, wells of hypnosis, surely, watched me only a few seconds more. His white feathers cut against the maple and the horizon. “Also eat shrews!” he seemed to say, as he darted over to another tree. My head turned to watch him pump through the purple aether of the night, white wings flashing like meteors.
I went back to the cube of heat and light, and the woman I love. I was smiling. I gave her a kiss and we sank down into the lumpy couch. There are so many mysteries. Every day we live is trying to solve some part of it.
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