Category: Adventure

Stargazing Winter’s Crab: Watching the 2019 Total Lunar Eclipse Near Cancer’s Beehive Cluster

Join me as a full moon slips into Earth’s shadow, turning copper beside Cancer’s Beehive—science, illusion, and wonder entwined in a winter night.

MichaelStephenWills23 Comments

Colored lights of our skies are lifelong triggers for the imagination. On any moonless, crystal night—far from the town-glow—three thousand or so stars and the wandering planets scatter across the dark. We read them instinctively, stitching patterns the way our ancestors did, turning a brilliant chaos into stories. Along the ecliptic, twelve of those patterns became the constellations, a starry calendar by which careful observers told the seasons. When Cancer, the Crab rides high, winter has the northern hemisphere in its grip

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Click photograph for my OnLine Galleries. Clicking the other photographs in this post will yield a larger image.

On the night of January 20–21, 2019, a full moon climbed from the horizon and slid into Earth’s shadow, transforming a familiar face into a copper coin. As it rose, that low-horizon “larger” moon—an illusion born of context—felt close enough to pocket. Hours later, the moon darkened to a dull copper color and appeared to float amid Cancer’s dim stars.

I set up a Canon DSLR on a tripod with a 24mm f/1.4 lens, pushed the ISO to 3200, and shortened the exposure to 1.3 seconds—a compromise between freezing star points and preserving the feel of the sky. The moon, of course, was overexposed in that wide frame; later, I overlaid a correctly exposed moon (from a telephoto shot later in the night) at its true apparent size to match the scene as the eye saw it. Is it the most “technical” astrophotograph of the eclipse? No. But it is faithful to the moment I witnessed and good enough to carry the story forward.

The Moon on the Crab’s back

Cancer is never an easy connect-the-dots. Its stars are modest, more suggestion than signature. Look just to the side of the moon’s position that night and you come to Delta Cancri, the orange giant nicknamed the Southern Donkey. Draw a mental line down and slightly right to the faint pair Nu and Gamma Cancri—white stars that only masquerade as twins. They are not physically bound, merely near each other by line of sight: Nu about 390 light-years away, Gamma at 181. Scatter in Alpha and Beta off the Crab’s back and the outline becomes more plausible, the way a minimal sketch becomes a creature once the eye knows what to look for.

The Beehive

Between Nu and Gamma, edged closer to the moon, lies the real prize: the Beehive Cluster—also known as Praesepe or M44. Even with modest binoculars, Praesepe explodes into a field of delicate sparks, a thousand stars loosely wrapped into a hive. Galileo famously turned his early telescope on this cloud and teased forty separate points from the mist; modern optics reveal a populous neighborhood of stellar siblings in shades from ice-blue to ember-red. It is one of those sights that converts a casual sky-gazer into a repeat offender.

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Total Lunar Eclipse and Surrounding Sky with labels for primary element of the Cancer constellation

Later in the night I lifted the telephoto—70–300mm at 300mm, ISO 3200, 3.2 seconds—and let the moon fill more of the frame. At totality, the light thinned to a clay-jar red as Earth’s atmosphere bent sunlight around the planet and into its shadow. The effect is both simple and profound: every sunset on Earth happening at once, projected onto the moon’s face. Craters and maria softened into relief, and the globe stopped being a flat disk and became a round, ancient body again. Even without Delta, Gamma, Nu, and the Beehive in that tighter field, the sense of placement remained; I knew the Crab’s back was there in the dark, and that the moon had joined it—just for an hour—as a guest at the manger.

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“Beehive” with Total Lunar Eclipse with labels for primary elements of Cancer Constellation

The Total Eclipse

What I love most about an eclipse is its pace. Nothing is impatient: the bite appears, the light drains, the color warms, and the world around you changes temperament. As the bright glare wanes, neighborhood sounds recalibrate—the hush between footfalls, the small click of a door, even the steadying breath you didn’t know you were holding. A total lunar eclipse is an astronomy lesson that behaves like a poem; it teaches by arranging time and light until awe and understanding meet.

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And then, quietly, it returns what it borrowed. A thin wedge of white blooms at one edge, a rehearsal for dawn. Copper gives way to pearl, and the old moon looks new again, just higher and smaller against the deepening night. Cancer recedes into suggestion; Praesepe goes back to being a faint cloud to the unaided eye. The camera is packed away, the tripod shoulders its own shadow, and you keep the best exposure of the night where it can’t be corrupted: in memory.

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If you have binoculars, mark Cancer on a winter chart and step outside when the sky is clear. Find Delta, sweep toward the dim pair of Nu and Gamma, and then rest your gaze on that hazy patch between them. Bring a friend into the circle and let the cluster resolve, star by star, into something alive with depth. It will not be the last time you look for it. And if you’re lucky enough, as we were that January, the moon will pass nearby, reminding you that even the most familiar companion can be made strange and beautiful by the turn of a shadow.

The sky is a storybook, yes—but also an instrument. Nights like this tune both.

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Blood Moon Reflections: Science, Illusion, and Shared Awe Under the Lunar Eclipse

We gather on the balcony as a total lunar eclipse turns the moon to copper—science, illusion, and shared wonder braid a night of luminous change.

MichaelStephenWills31 Comments

Moonrise

On certain evenings we gather on our Cocoa Beach, Florida east-facing beach-side balcony simply to watch the day undo itself—sunset staining the western sky while, behind us, something quieter begins. On Sunday, January 20, 2019, the quiet had a name: a total lunar eclipse. I’d checked the online charts earlier—moonrise time, azimuth, the patient geometry of the heavens laid out in numbers—and set our chairs faced the anticipated spectacle.

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The light went a little pewter, as it does when the sun slides offstage and the world inhales. Out on the water a cruise ship shouldered south, a floating city of windows that, under ordinary sunsets, catch fire pane by pane. I looked up too late for the blaze and felt that small pang one gets for the thing almost seen. Still, the ship kept gliding, a bright punctuation mark traveling our skyline.

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Then the moon appeared—first as a bruise-colored coin pressed against a bank of cloud, then as itself, pale and whole, rising as if pulled on a cord. Photographs can play a trick here: place a ship under a full moon and, with the right lens, the vessel swells to improbable grandeur while the moon looks like a modest ornament. Our eyes know better. The ship is huge but near; the moon is unimaginably larger, only far. Distance humbles everything.

It’s a fine parlor truth that every lunar eclipse requires a full moon. There’s a steadiness in that—that the earth, playing the rare importance of middle child, can only cast its shadow when the moon has come fully into its own. The reverse, of course, is not guaranteed. Most full moons rise and go about their business, silvering roofs and quieting dogs, without ever tasting the earth’s shadow. Tonight would be different.

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The Riddle of Size

Before the darkness advanced, the old riddle of size made its entrance. Low on the horizon, the moon seemed suddenly intimate, big enough to pocket the ship and still have room for the lighthouse. We call it an illusion, but the word hardly captures the tenderness of it: how the mind, seeing that round face near our familiar trees and eaves, feels the moon to be part of our belongings. Angular diameter stays stubbornly constant; affection does not. The experiment is easy enough—choose a pebble that covers the low moon at arm’s length, then try again when the moon is high. The same pebble hides it perfectly. What changes is not the moon, but the story our senses tell.

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Clouds raveled and the disk lifted, gathering brightness. As the earth’s umbra slid across that worn, luminous stone, the color shifted from pearl to rust, then to the old red of clay amphorae. People love the names—Super, Wolf, Blood—as if the moon had stepped onto a carnival midway. I prefer the quieter facts: sun, earth, moon aligned; light refracted through air; the planet itself briefly confessed in velvet shadow. It felt less like spectacle than like a family resemblance revealed by candlelight.

Eclipse

Much later, around us, the little neighborhood chorus noticed. A conversation stalled mid-sentence; the unspooled hush you hear at a concert just before the bow draws its first note came and settled on the patio. Even the ocean seemed to restrain itself, waves taking smaller breaths. The cruise ship had long since slid behind the curvature of our seeing.

We kept watching. A lunar eclipse is an exercise in patience: everything happens slowly enough to be felt, quickly enough to refuse boredom. Shadows are honest about their edges. When the moon wore its deepest copper, I thought of ancient nights and imaginations unlit by anything but fire, how dependable cycles must have seemed like messages and how—standing there, spine pricked by a familiar old awe—I could not entirely disagree. It was not fear, but kinship: the sense that we are included in the machinery, not merely spectators.

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When the light returned, it did so from one margin, like dawn rehearsed on a smaller stage. The coin brightened by degrees, and the old face we know reappeared—craters and mares soft as thumbprints. The illusion of size faded as the moon climbed, and the experiment with the pebble proved itself yet again. Even so, I felt the tug of that earlier enchantment, the way a child misses a dream just after waking. The mind keeps two ledgers: one for what is measured, one for what is felt. Tonight both were full.

Eventually we retired. Chairs nested. Doors clicked. In the kitchen, glasses chimed in the sink. But the moon kept on, white and durable, its borrowed light restored. Somewhere out there the ship’s passengers drifted to their cabins, stories in their pockets about the night the world itself cast a shadow, and how the ocean looked briefly like copper under a patient star.

Later, when I wrote down the times and the few facts I could trust to memory, I realized the real record was not the measurements but the company: our leaning back, the shared breath, the soft astonishment that comes when something vast moves at a human pace. The eclipse ended; the evening did not. That, too, felt like a kind of alignment—ours with one another, our small chairs with a very large sky.

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Exploring Sipapu Bridge: A Scenic Descent

Experience the thrill of descending into Utah’s White Canyon—slickrock trails, driftwood ladders, and stunning views await at Sipapu Bridge in Natural Bridges Monument.

MichaelStephenWills6 Comments
The final descent into White Canyon to view Sipapu Bridge, Natural Bridges National Monument near Blanding, Utah

Final Step

Here is a photograph of the final stage of our descent into White Canyon. Here the trail traverseed a type of sandstone called “Slickrock.” For Pam and I the surface was like sandpaper and, for the right type of shoes, provides great traction.

That day I wore Lowe hiking boots with a harder sole and these could slip at times. I’d recommend a different shoe for the trail, but my boots come over the ankle and provide great support. Plus, the canyon bottom is sandy, so high boots prevent sand from falling into the shoe. A perfect choice for this trip is a high boot that provides support, with a softer sole on a hard and light shank (to protect you against sharp rocks).

What is Slickrock?

Slickrock was named by the first settlers and explorers who discovered their iron shod horses lost footing on the steep slopes of this sandstone.

This was another feature of Pam and my descent into White Canyon. The sandstone weathers in a way that produces steep slopes over which the trail must pass and the traveler navigate. I chose this image as a Fine Art print (part of a series featuring Natural Bridges National Monument) because this part of the trial is strange and beautiful.

The hard rock cliffs are resistant to wear and, in this climate, weather to provide rounded surfaces. The cliff face is scalloped and marked with desert varnish striations that “pop out” from the red rock. Then, there is the clear light and bright morning sky on a summer morning that promised thunderstorms.

Gratitude

Then, there are the personal memories of that iron railing drilled into the rock and that marvelous looking ladder created from driftwood found in the canyon.  That ladder is a work of art!!  The photograph does not reproduce the feeling Pam and I had at that point of the descent.  I needed to climb down the ladder backwards (facing out) and holding on .

We were both grateful to reach the sandy stream bed in White Canyon.

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Celebrating Community at Dryden Dairy Days Parade

Experience the joy of small-town tradition as three generations celebrate cows, community, and colorful floats at the 2025 Dryden Dairy Day Parade in upstate New York.

MichaelStephenWills11 Comments

On a glorious Saturday morning—June 14, 2025—the small village of Dryden, New York, once again came alive with one of its most beloved traditions: the Dairy Day Parade. I had the joy of attending this year’s festivities with my daughter-in-law, Jennifer, and my two grandsons, Sam and Rory. We set up along Main Street, folding chair ready and anticipation high, surrounded by a growing crowd of families, neighbors, and out-of-town visitors drawn by the charm of this time-honored event.

Dryden Dairy Day, first held in 1980, has long celebrated the area’s agricultural roots—particularly the dairy farms that once dotted the Finger Lakes region in greater number. Though the rural landscape has changed, the community spirit endures, embodied each year in this cheerful, inclusive parade. And what a parade it was.

Sam and Rory, who started out quietly nestled together in a red camp chair, quickly leaned forward in excitement as the opening marchers passed. Veterans in pressed blue shirts and caps bore the flags solemnly, stepping to the rhythm of distant drumbeats. The boys gladly collected candy thrown to the crowd by the paraders.

Then came the color and music—floats festooned with balloons, hay bales, streamers, and, of course, cows. The Jerry Dell Farm float, labeled “LegenDAIRY Superheroes,” stole the show with its red metal rails, a large cutout Holstein suspended in mid-leap, and enthusiastic kids handing out “Got Milk?” flyers. The float’s theme—half play, half tribute—offered a nod to the hardworking farmers past and present who’ve kept local dairies running despite national challenges.

Behind them, children waved from trailers turned farmyard dioramas. In one, rabbits and baby chicks nestled on pastel blankets inside red and gray wagons, drawing audible “awws” from the crowd. Another float featured kids feeding baby goats from white pails, an irresistible scene that reminded us of the joys of hands-on farm life.

Marching groups followed, each bringing their own spark. A contingent from Tompkins Cortland Community College, all in matching green shirts, smiled and waved. Their banner and cheetah logo brought cheers from alumni in the crowd. Girl Scouts from Troop 427 of Golden Meadows brought peace signs, love hearts, and Girl Scout green to life as they passed, handing out candy and smiles with equal generosity.

We clapped for the “Wreaths Across America” semi-truck—a rolling tribute to fallen soldiers. Its stars-and-stripes exterior and the wreath-emblazoned motto “Remember. Honor. Teach.” was a solemn visual counterpoint to the general jubilation, grounding us in gratitude amid celebration.

One of the most magical sights for Sam and Rory came next: a medieval knight on horseback, gleaming in armor, carrying a long lance. This was no Renaissance Fair actor but a local reenactor embodying chivalry and pageantry for the kids. Rory, eyes wide, whispered, “Is that a real knight?” and I nodded with a smile. The horse, a proud palomino with flowing mane, trotted as regally as any steed from storybooks.

At one point, we found ourselves surrounded by people wearing cow-print headbands and passing out themed goodies—a detail that would feel odd anywhere else but felt perfectly at home here. Even the Girl Scouts managed to mix tradition with whimsy, some donning glittering horns and cow ears for the occasion.

I selectively captured photos, while Jen and the boys soaked in the sights and sounds: the distant whinny of ponies, the rustle of candy wrappers on the pavement. Parades like this are entertainment and intergenerational bridges, connecting the past with the present, the seasoned farmer with the wide-eyed child, and the local with the visitor.

As the parade wound down and the last float passed, we lingered a while longer. The boys were still buzzing with excitement, eager to share their favorite parts—“the knight!” said Rory, “the baby goats!” said Sam. For me, the most treasured moment was watching my grandsons engage so deeply with the richness of local heritage, waving to friends in the parade feeling part of something bigger than themselves.

Dryden Dairy Day reminds us that community is people lining the street on a Saturday morning. It’s floats handmade with care. It’s generations walking side by side—and sometimes sitting in the same chair—laughing, learning, and loving the place they call home.

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Exploring Sims-Jennings Preserve: A Nature Lover’s Delight

A walk through Sims-Jennings Preserve unveils ancient cliffs, vibrant bird calls, and the quiet wisdom of maples and waterfalls along Cayuga Lake’s forested edge.

MichaelStephenWills15 Comments

I arrive early, the sun still climbing its slow arc, brushing the eastern sky in pastels as I step into the Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs. The trailhead, tucked neatly along NYS Route 34B, is a doorway into an ancient chapter of the Finger Lakes—one rich with the scent of moss, the hush of leaf-dappled silence, and the layered echoes of stone and birdsong.

The first thing that strikes me is the expanse of mowed meadow, rimmed with goldenrod and patches of milkweed. From here, the land rolled gently westward until it ends abruptly in cliffs that plummeted toward Cayuga Lake. A map at the entrance speaks of the Sherburne and Renwick Formations, shale and siltstone laid down when the land was covered in warm Devonian seas. The cliffs themselves stand like watchmen over time, protecting 4,000 feet of lakeshore from erosion, whispering tales older than mammals.

A side trail leads to this mowed meadow and Cayuga Lake overlook

On the meadow edge is this Carya ovata, or shagbark hickory, unmistakable from its elongated leaflets and distinctive bark that peeled in long, curled strips. The leaves shimmered in the breeze, their green etched with pale speckles of recent rain, as if nature herself had hand-painted them.

Shagbark Hickory on the edge of meadow.
Leaves of the Shagbark Hickory
Shagbark Hickory bark / trunk

I follow the yellow-blazed trail into a thicket where tall sugar maples—Acer saccharum—arched overhead. Their leaves caught the morning light, each palm-sized blade glowing like a shard of stained glass.



Throughout the preserve I find large holes like these in a pine tree snag, the work of a Pileated Woodpecker.

A sudden fluting note from the trees stops me in my tracks. “Ee-oh-lay,” the Wood Thrush sang, its call cascading through the forest like water over stone. Moments later, the rapid, accelerating trill of an Ovenbird joins in—a sound like “teacher-teacher-teacher” echoing from the understory. The forest is alive.

Watch on YouTube for the best experience.

I descend into the shade. A narrow stream runs over the flat gray ledges of the Ludlowville Formation, forming delicate waterfalls no taller than a man but intricate as lace. One fall, framed by a colonnade of black cherry and beech trees, poured over stone like a ribbon of silk. The water’s voice changed with each ledge—first a murmur, then a chuckle, then quiet confidence as it wound through the woods.

Here, a Scarlet Tanager flashes like flame through the canopy, its red feathers shocking against the sea of green. Above, the Eastern Wood-Pewee calles its own name from a high perch—“pee-a-wee”—a humble herald of summer. Lower down, a Tufted Titmouse flits from branch to branch, a gray blur with a whistle like curiosity incarnate.

Further along, a looping vine coils around a pair of trees like an ancient signature. Possibly a native bittersweet, its woody stem thick as a child’s arm. It reminds me of how all life here is entangled—flora, fauna, stone, and stream woven into one vast web.

I pause at the overlook, where the trail skirts the cliffs. From this height, the view opened to Cayuga Lake, vast and gleaming in the morning light. Across the water, the hills of the western shore softened into a watercolor horizon.

Crowbar Point on the west lake shore is visible, partially hidden by trees. Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs, Finger Lakes Land Trust on a May morning 2025, Lansing, Tompkins County, Finger Lakes Region

On the walk back, a robin sings its measured phrases from a nearby hawthorn, and I think how common birds often hold the deepest solace. The robin’s voice rises above the silence, not grand, not rare, but reassuring in its familiarity—like a good friend’s greeting.

A shale ledge, Renwick Formation (?)

I leave the preserve changed gently, like the soft indent of a footstep in moss. The Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs is a place that reminds you to listen. To the birds, to the trees, to your own breath. And in listening, you remember what it means to be wholly present in the world.

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On The Edge of Time Above Taughannock Gorge

Perched above Taughannock Gorge, a moss-covered ledge and cascading falls reveal ancient stories—where Devonian seas once flowed and time’s layers whisper through stone and water.

MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

The morning sun had only just breached the rim of the gorge, sending long slants of golden light across the forest floor. Walking the South Rim Trail of Taughannock Falls State Park, I came upon a quiet, unassuming spot—just a few paces off the path—where the forest seemed to pause in reverence. What greeted me was a small marvel of persistence and time.

There, rooted precariously atop a slab of brittle shale, was a tenacious shrub rising from a bed of moss, its spindly frame etched in sharp contrast to the soft, green sprawl beneath it. The moss had taken hold on a shelf of rock cantilevered over the gorge like a green tongue of earth defying gravity. Cracks traced the shale’s surface like veins, silent records of the forces that shaped this place—heat, ice, pressure, time. Together, the moss and the bush formed an improbable community, surviving against odds, bound together by the thin soil cradled in stone.

This ledge, suspended over the abyss, seemed less a part of the earth than a question it asked—how much life can cling to the edge before the edge itself gives way?

Beneath this living fragment, the gorge dropped away. Layers upon layers of shale revealed themselves, stacked like a collapsed library of time. Here, the Devonian Period lies exposed to wind and rain, and to those willing to pause and wonder. Each stratum holds the fossil whisper of ancient seas, where trilobites scuttled and coral reefs once stood. This gorge was not carved quickly. It was not born of a moment, but of many—countless raindrops, millennia of ice melt, the slow, sure work of water over stone.

From this natural balcony, I looked out and down to the gorge floor where the creek shaped the land with an artist’s patient hand. The falls, seen from above, no longer thundered—they danced. Spread like the folds of a fan, water curled over smooth stone in steps of white silk. From here, the cascade looked deliberate, choreographed—an elemental performance halfway between gravity and grace.

How many times had this water flowed, reshaped, receded? How often had it carved these grooves, smoothed those ridges, erased the footprints of what came before? Looking at the exposed rock, one could trace the signature of ancient glaciers, feel the memory of long-gone floods. It was humbling—this intersection of change and continuity.

Above it all, the trees stood still. Pine and oak, rooted well back from the edge, offered a kind of sentinel presence. Their shadows stretched long and angled, tracing the contours of both earth and memory. For a moment, I let go of all thought and simply listened—to the murmur of wind through leaves, the faint rush of water far below, and the silence that presses in when the land itself seems to be remembering.

This spot—so easily missed by a hurried hiker—offered a parable of resilience and impermanence. The moss did not grow with certainty, nor the shrub reach with confidence. They survived on the edge because they adapted. They made do with less. They took root where others could not. There was no security in that place, only presence. Only the now.

And isn’t that a lesson worth carrying?

We so often seek stability, firm ground, a clear path. Yet, some of the most beautiful things live just beyond comfort—on ledges, in cracks, in the margins of the known. To pause here was to acknowledge that life thrives not only in sheltered valleys but also at the edge of what seems possible.

As I stepped back onto the trail and continued along the South Rim, the image of that mossy outcrop stayed with me. I carried it in my thoughts like a talisman—proof that even on the brink, life finds a way. And that from above, the most chaotic falls can appear as ordered motion, as a flow toward something larger.

Later, when the sun climbed higher and the light lost its slant, I would look back on this moment not as a spectacular highlight but as something more intimate: a quiet encounter with nature’s subtle artistry, its layered truths, and its enduring invitation to look closely, feel deeply, and walk softly.

For here, above the gorge, at the edge of earth and time, even a whisper leaves a mark.

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Inishmore Landscape

Dún Aonghasa Elegy

High above the Atlantic on Inishmore, Dun Aonghasa Elegy reflects on sky, stone, and memory in a timeless Irish landscape shaped by wind and will.

MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

From the commanding location of Dún Aonghasa, looking northeast across Inishmore, the logic of the ancients becomes clear. No better vantage could be found—land unfurling like a hand toward Galway Bay, cottages nestled in green folds, clouds billowing above like sails caught mid-journey. A place of presence. A place of permanence.

Click the link for my Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands

Inishmore Landscape

Perched high on the cliff’s edge, the fort behind, the Atlantic at the back, the wind carried stories—unwritten, unspoken, but felt in the bones. Below, stone walls divided the island into patterns of memory. Fields outlined in rock, laid long ago by hands familiar with hardship and patience. The sea’s pulse echoed faintly in the distance, as steady and unfathomable as time itself.

No words were needed in that moment. Just the hush of sky and stone. Cottages, bleached bright by limewash—kalsomine, the old name still whispered by some—stood resilient against the elements, each one a witness to generations. Each one seemed to carry a personal reverence, a tenderness carved into the landscape.

Paths led gently inland, where wind slowed and voices from distant homes rose faintly through the open air. Along those paths, the rhythm of island life could be read in hoof prints, scattered wool, and the sharp, clean edges of hand-cut stone. There, among the hedges of limestone and wild grass, the living and the lost felt close.

The cloud cover shifted constantly. Shadows passed like thoughts across the land. Toward the shore, the sky opened wide. A silence filled the lungs, as bracing and deep as the Atlantic itself. Time seemed to slow, the mind slipping into the rhythm of the land.

Limestone pavement, rough beneath the boots, told its own tale of erosion and survival. That the earth here could sustain even the most modest farming seemed improbable. Yet here it was: a testament to stubborn hope and quiet ingenuity. In that quiet, ancient energy rose—something older than the fort, older than language. A pulse shared with the rock and wind.

The fort eventually came back into view—perched as if grown from the cliff itself, curved walls enclosing nothing but air and sky. I perceived no defensive bluster, only presence. And what a view it commanded. On days like this, the clouds formed towering cathedrals overhead, white and gold in the sun. Below, the cottages and fields seemed miniature, perfect, enduring.

The wind played echoes of prayer, lullaby, and laughter mingled with the call of seabirds. The thought came that nothing here was ever truly lost—only layered. Generation upon generation, each leaving some trace: a stone placed just so, a wall mended one final time, a cottage roof patched for another winter.

Here, even the air speaks. It moves gently but insistently, brushing the cheeks and stirring something ancient within the chest. Beneath it, the island breathes: not loudly, not urgently, but with the slow, deep rhythm of the tides.

As the sun dipped slightly westward, light changed across the fields, cottages glowing warm against darkening green. The wind softened. The clouds drifted, still massive but no longer looming. Time to return. A glance back offered one last communion with sky, stone, and silence.

Inishmore, on that day had been absorbed. Understood not with the mind, but with something quieter. Something that listens without need for words.

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

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A Whitewashed Memory on Inishmore

I reflect on traditional Aran cottages while journeying to Dún Aonghasa, emphasizing the beauty of simplicity and lasting memories.

MichaelStephenWills27 Comments

It was the kind of overcast morning that seems to cradle the island in a blanket of mist, a gentle hush falling over the land as though even the Atlantic held its breath. Pam and I had arrived by ferry at Kilronan, the main settlement on Inishmore (Inis Mór), the largest of the Aran Islands nestled in Galway Bay. There, amid the bustle of arrivals and greetings, we found our driver—a wiry, weather-worn man with a soft brogue and kind eyes—and his horse trap, a simple two-wheeled carriage with room enough for three and the sounds of hooves to accompany our journey.

We set out up Cottage Road, the stone-paved track winding westward from the harbor. The sea fell away behind us as we climbed, a gray shimmer stretching to the hazy outline of Connemara’s mountains on the far side of the bay. Our destination was the dramatic cliffside ringfort of Dún Aonghasa, a place older than memory. But it was the unexpected moments in between—the ones not printed in guidebooks—that linger longest in the mind.

As we rounded a bend flanked by low stone walls, wildflowers blooming defiantly in the cracks, our driver pulled the reins gently and pointed with his crop.

“There,” he said, nodding ahead, “is a fine example of a traditional Aran cottage.”

And there it was—a vision from another time. The thatched roof curved softly like a that blanket itself, straw golden against the brooding sky. The walls were whitewashed to a perfect matte sheen, gleaming in spite of the cloud cover. A crimson door and two window frames punctuated the front façade like punctuation in a poem. Just to its right, set further back on the hill, stood a tiny replica of the same cottage, identical in every feature. I blinked, half believing it was an illusion.

Click the link for my Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands
This thatched cottage with matching child’s playhouse is on Cottage Road out of Kilronan Village on the Aran island, Inishmore, County Galway, Ireland.

We only stopped briefly—it was a private residence—but the sight of it left a kind of imprint. I turned in the trap seat to keep it in view as long as I could. The cottage was perfectly placed, facing Galway Bay with a commanding view. I imagined the light pouring across the line of mountains, catching the glint of sea and sky.

“There’s a name for that finish,” I said, recalling something I’d read, “whitewash, or lime paint.”

Our driver nodded. “That’s the old way. Made from slaked lime. We’d call it ‘whitening’ when I was a lad.”

Whitewash differs from paint in the most elemental of ways. It becomes part of the stone, absorbed into the very surface. Like a memory of bone. And yet, it requires care. Apply it to a wall not properly cleaned or moistened, and it flakes, pulls away like a broken promise. But done right, it lasts, breathes with the building.

Upon our return, researching “whitewash,” if found this photograph from the Yarloop railway workshops Yarloop, Western Australia. There, on a shelf, where three old boxes sat like relics: DURABLO, WESCO, and CALCIMO. All contained kalsomine—the powdered form of lime paint. CALCIMO promised to “beautify walls and ceilings” and was proudly marked “LIME PROOF.” There was something quietly heroic in that. Lime-proof, as though against time itself.

Yarloop railway workshops Yarloop, Western Australia Kalsomine, wall ceiling plaster powder. Source: Wikipedia article on White Wash. Author: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gnangarra

Looking at the box of Calcimo, a product of the Murabo Company of Australia, I was struck by how far the tradition had traveled. From island cottages in the Atlantic to distant corners of the Southern Hemisphere, the language of whitewash—of simplicity and purity—had touched the world.

We returned by the same road, past that same cottage, the small one still keeping watch beside it like a child beside a parent. And I knew then that the islands hadn’t just given me sights—they had offered stories, silent ones written in thatch and stone, in lime and wind.

Sources for this post: search wikipedia for “White Wash”. White wash photo author: Wikipedia commons user Gnangarra

Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”

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Monument Valley’s Big Indian: Navajo Wisdom and the Geology of Time

Monument Valley, or Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii, embodies a profound connection between the Diné people and the land, contrasting imposed names with cultural significance and sacred narratives.

MichaelStephenWills17 Comments

In the golden hush of this November sunset, Monument Valley stretches before us – an endless desert plain punctuated by towering red rock sentinels. The sky is vast and translucent blue, as a pale three-quarter moon rises silently above a solitary spire of sandstone. That spire is known on maps as Big Indian, a stone pillar glowing russet in the low sun. It stands apart from the mesas, its silhouette uncanny against the evening sky. In this serene moment, the land feels alive with presence. And the name “Big Indian” lingers in the air, raising quiet questions about what we call this place – and what it truly is.

From a distance, the spire does suggest a figure: tourists are told to squint, tilt their heads, and “see” the profile of a Native face gazing outward. One can imagine the first person to name it must’ve been a bored prospector, half-delirious from the heat after a lunch of canned beans, declaring: “I swear that rock looks like Uncle Joe in a feathered headdress.” And so the name stuck – a geological Rorschach test gone slightly colonial.

These whimsical titles – Totem Pole, Stagecoach, Big Indian – come not from the land, but from a long habit of outsiders labeling what they didn’t fully understand. “Big Indian” is particularly layered. The term “Indian” itself was born from Columbus’s navigational misfire, mistaking the Caribbean for Asia and its people for “Indios.” The Diné, the people who have lived here for centuries, never called themselves that. So this towering formation now bears the echo of a 15th-century directional blunder —like a name tag on the Sphinx that reads “Buckeye” because someone once thought Egypt was in Ohio. It’s a reminder: names given in haste can cling for centuries, even when they miss the mark entirely.

But beyond the names imposed by mapmakers, the spire simply is, in all its silent grandeur. In Diné lands, this valley has a different name: Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii, often translated as Valley of the Rocks. In the Navajo tongue the name literally evokes “rock within white streaks around” – referring to the light bands of sediment that ring the red buttes​. Those pale streaks wrap the spire like faded paint, remnants of ancient layers of earth. Here the Diné language whispers a description born of the land itself, unlike the English names that often project an outsider’s story. Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii speaks to the truth of the place: stone and light, strata and shadow. As the sun lowers, you can actually see those whitish bands catching the last glow, encircling the butte like old memory. The Diné name honors what the eye sees – the layered geology – rather than imposing an unrelated label. This spire and its neighbors were not built by human hands, though their sheer stature can feel like architecture of the gods. Millions of years of natural artistry shaped Monument Valley.

Long before any person walked here, this land was a low basin collecting sediments​. Layer upon layer of sand and silt hardened into rock, and a slow uplift in the earth heaved the basin into a plateau​. Wind and water became patient sculptors over the last 50 million years, carving the plateau and peeling away the softer material​. What remains today are the skeletal monuments of that erosion: buttes, mesas, and spires rising up to a thousand feet above the desert floor. Each is made of stratified stone – the broader bases of red shale and sandstone, and a cap of harder rock that resists the elements​. Big Indian’s sturdy pedestal and slender crest tell this story of layered resilience. In the red-orange rock, oxides of iron tint the cliffs a deep rust, while streaks of black manganese oxide – “desert varnish” – trace down their sides like natural paint​. Time and the elements have sculpted a masterpiece here.

Standing at its foot, one needs imagine the immeasurable ages of sun and storm that chiseled this lone tower from the earth. And yet, facts of geology alone fail to capture the spirit one feels in Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii. The Diné know that spirit well – this valley is sacred to the Navajo Nation​. To them, these colossal rocks are alive with meaning. The people have lived and wandered among these mesas for centuries, blessing the land with their stories and prayers.

In Navajo cosmology, the landscape itself is imbued with life and purpose. The buttes are often seen as ancestors, guardians, or holy figures watching over the People. For example, the famous twin buttes called the Mittens are said to be a pair of spiritual beings – one male, one female – forever facing each other across the valley, protecting and balancing the land​. Another hulking mesa, Sentinel Mesa, is known as a “door post” of the valley, a guardian at the entrance​, paired with another butte as the opposite door post​. The valley, in the Diné way of seeing, resembles a great hogan, a home blessed by the gods: the mesas at its threshold are like the posts of a doorway, and a butte called The Hub is imagined as the central fire hearth of this immense home​.

In this way, the Diné landscape is a living, storied environment. Even the spindly formations carry sacred narrative. Seven miles southeast from Big Indian stand slender pinnacles known to the Navajo as Yei Bi Chei, named for the masked spiritual dancers who emerge on the last night of a winter healing ceremony​.

Each dawn, as the first light breaks over the mesas, it’s said the Navajo families come out of their hogans to greet the sun with prayers – their doorways always face the east to receive blessings of the day​. In the same way, the great stone hogan of Monument Valley opens eastward, with its door-post buttes and its eternal fireplace. In Diné worldview, earth and sky are intertwined with their lives; they speak of Mother Earth from whom they emerged and to whom they owe care​. Here in Monument Valley, it is possible to feel that harmony – the sense that every column of rock, every whispering juniper shrub, every beam of sunlight and moonrise is part of a whole living tapestry.

We watch as the moon climbs higher above the Big Indian spire, its silvery light softening the rock’s hard edges. This place has known many names and will outlast many more. The Paiute people who roamed here before called it “Valley Amid the Rocks” and wove myths of gods and giants into its features​. Later came the labels of explorers and filmmakers: Monument Valley, a monumental canvas for Western legends. And of course, the simplistic tag Big Indian for this lone rock – a name that says more about those who coined it than about the land itself.

Names, in the end, are stories we tell about the world. The colonial names imposed here are like brief echoes across the ages, while the Diné stories run deep as the red earth. The Diné prefer to call themselves Diné – meaning “the People”​– and they call this land by names that describe its true character. I imagine that to the People, this spire might be thought of not as an “Indian” at all, but perhaps as a sentinel or an old friend standing watch. Its Diné name, if it has one, would likely emerge from its form or its role in a story, spoken with reverence.

As dusk turns to twilight, an immense peace settles. The monolith before me is no longer just Big Indian on a map; it is an ancient entity shaped by time and honored by generations. In the silence, we can almost hear the land speaking in the old language – telling of how it was born from oceans and sand, how it saw the first people wander through, how it endures through centuries of memory. The rock shares with us a moment beyond names: just the whisper of wind, the glow of moon, and a feeling of connection and wonder. This is Monument Valley, Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii, in all its truth. In this contemplative dusk, I bow to the tower of stone, misnamed yet never truly defined by that misnomer. It remains what it has always been – a creation of earth and spirit, a witness to history, a source of humble awe. Tuning to leave, I softly speak a word of thanks – Ahéheeʼ – grateful to have listened, if only briefly, to the sacred voice of the valley.


Bibliography

Encyclopædia Britannica – Tribal Nomenclature: American Indian, Native American, and First Nation ​britannica.com (origin of the term “Indian” as a colonial misnomer)

Navajo Nation Parks & Recreation – Monument Valley (Tsé Bii’ Ndzisgaii) ​navajonationparks.org​navajonationparks.org (official site detailing Monument Valley’s geology and formation)

Robert S. McPherson – Monument Valley. Utah History Encyclopedia​uen.org​uen.org (history, geology, and indigenous lore of Monument Valley)

Aztec Navajo County – Monument Valley PDF Guide ​aztecnm.com​aztecnm.com (descriptions of formations, including Navajo perspectives on their meanings and names)

Navajo Word of the Day – Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii ​navajowotd.com (explanation of the Navajo name for Monument Valley, meaning “white streaks in the rocks”)

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Myth and Art: The Sirens of Punta de las Salinas

At Punta de las Salinas, Lily Perkins’ sculptures embody siren mythology, merging art with the rugged beauty of nature’s edge.

MichaelStephenWills9 Comments

The wind carried the scent of the sea as we stood at Punta de las Salinas, the furthest tip of Punta del Este, Uruguay. This was a place of myth and mystery for us, where the Atlantic Ocean merged with the Río de la Plata, and where the rocks bore witness to the timeless interplay of water and stone. Here stood “El Canto de las Sirenas” (The Song of the Mermaids), an evocative art installation by Lily Perkins, first completed in 2012. The sculptures seemed perfectly at home here, their placement deeply intertwined with the mythology they evoked.

This is at Great Britain Square, Punta de las Salinas of Punta del Este. We are at the tip of the peninsula, the easternmost point of Uruguay. This is the art installation El Canto de las Sirenas” (The Song of the Mermaids) (2012) by the artist Lily Perkins. Punta del Este, Departamento de Maldonado, Uruguay

The sirens of ancient lore were said to dwell at perilous points where land met the untamed sea, luring sailors to their doom with haunting songs. These rocky outcrops, both a boundary and a threshold, have long held symbolic power as places where the natural world is at its most raw and elemental. Punta de las Salinas is such a place. Its jagged rocks and churning waves create an environment as beautiful as it is treacherous. It is easy to imagine mythical sirens choosing this very spot to weave their spellbinding melodies.

This is at Great Britain Square, Punta de las Salinas of Punta del Este. We are at the tip of the peninsula, the easternmost point of Uruguay. This is the art installation El Canto de las Sirenas” (The Song of the Mermaids) (2012) by the artist Lily Perkins. Punta del Este, Departamento de Maldonado, Uruguay

Lily Perkins’ installation captures this essence. The sculptures are not idealized depictions of mermaids; they are rugged and raw, encrusted with shells, stones, and marine debris. Their weathered forms mirror the harsh, untamed beauty of their surroundings. It is as if they have emerged from the ocean itself, born of the waves and the salt-laden air, to stand as sentinels at the edge of the world.

The central figure, with her face turned skyward, evokes the myth of the siren’s song—a melody so enchanting that it drove sailors to risk their lives against the rocks. Her posture suggests longing, perhaps for a connection beyond the horizon, or perhaps for the very mortals she is fated to ensnare. Nearby, a broken figure reclines against the rocks, her form partially encased in green netting and mosaic-like tiles. She seems more grounded, her siren’s call muted, as if weighed down by the realities of the modern world. The use of marine materials in her construction—a blend of natural and human-made debris—suggests an awareness of humanity’s impact on the seas.

The third figure, slightly apart, is the most enigmatic. Encrusted with barnacles and weathered by the elements, she seems lost in thought. Her gaze is directed not toward the sea but toward the land, as if contemplating her place at this meeting of worlds. In mythology, sirens were liminal creatures, existing between realms—the sea and the shore, the mortal and the divine. This figure embodies that in-between state, rooted in the rocks yet shaped by the sea.

The placement of these sculptures at Punta de las Salinas is no accident. This headland is the easternmost point of Uruguay, a natural boundary and a crossroads where two vast bodies of water meet. For centuries, sailors navigated these waters, their journeys fraught with danger. The rocks here are unforgiving, and the waves crash with relentless power. To stand at this point is to feel the raw energy of the ocean and to understand why myths of sirens arose in such places. The sirens symbolize both allure and peril, a reminder of the ocean’s capacity to inspire and to destroy.

As I walked among the sculptures, the mythology seemed to come alive. The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks could easily be imagined as the sirens’ song—a hypnotic rhythm that draws you in and holds you spellbound. The figures, though silent, seemed to hum with an energy that echoed the sea’s eternal motion.

I feld these sculptures were not merely placed at Punta de las Salinas; but had emerged from it, their forms shaped by the same forces that shaped the rocks beneath our feet. The shells and stones embedded in their surfaces tied them physically to the sea, while their mythical resonance tied them spiritually to the place.

The mythology of the sirens speaks to the duality of the sea—its beauty and its danger, its capacity to give and to take away. Standing at Punta de las Salinas, surrounded by Perkins’ sculptures, I felt that duality in a profound way. The ocean stretched endlessly before us, a vast, unknowable expanse, while behind us lay the solid ground of the peninsula—a place of safety, but also a place that ended here, at this edge.

Lily Perkins sculptures are restored…..

As we left, the figures seemed to watch us go, their silent song lingering in my mind. The sirens of Punta del Este are more than art; they are a dialogue between myth and reality, between the natural world and the human imagination. In their weathered beauty, they remind us of the stories the sea has always told, and of the enduring power of those who give those stories form.

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