Category Archives: mYm2020

sunrise photos: mistymuse encore

I wasn’t expecting to see the sunrise this morning, but hadn’t remembered until seeing the sun that British Summer Time (BST) had started eleven days ago, requiring we turned time on an hour, meaning the sunrise also went on an hour, from 5.51 on the 27th to 6.48 (would’ve been 5.48, as first sight of the sun is about 2/3 minutes earlier per day) on the 28th.

Eleven days later, the ‘sunrise’ today was at 6.24. The ash tree (Yggdrasil) is now budding, and very popular with the birds!

Sun’s Journey Over A Month (Really it’s our orbital journey and changing view)

The ‘sunrise’ continues up the horizon though. Although it seems to be departing for me, earlier and nearly out of sight, for the northern hemisphere as a whole it is in fact more visible; earlier and for longer.

Comparing it to this photo from March 6th (last year, but it’s roughly the same every year) shows how much farther up the horizon it ‘rises’ over a month. This morning it rose between the two trees under ‘Yggdrasil’, where the arrow points.

historic mistymuse photos

A year ago yesterday the photos below were taken, and comparing them to photos earlier in the week started the ancient astronomical angle to the mistYmuse.

EQUINOX+1: later Sunrise travels south for one week more…

The sun is rising over Leeds again (how it looks to us, although really it’s the way our planet orbits the sun), like it was in the early March photos; making the return journey!

From our viewpoint the sunrise is now heading back southwards on the horizon, reaching its most southerly point around midwinter (around December 21st). While that is the positive that inspired the mistYmuse (Most Ideal Sunrise Time – Midwinter Until Spring Equinox), really it’s our planet’s tilt pointing the north away from the sun, so we have less sun time: seeing it later and for less time on our planet’s spin, creating short days and long nights.

Our planet’s axis doesn’t change it’s position; doesn’t bank around corners like a bike: it is more like an inflexible rigid stick flying around a circle; so half the year south is faced more towards the sun, and the other half it is the north, changing at the equinoxes, giving each half a summer and winter.

The Earth at northern hemisphere Midsummer about four months ago:

You can see where it is now at The Planets Today. Seeing today’s image reminded me there was also a beautiful slither of moon visible, with Venus above it dazzling in the sky blue.

At the height of summer (around June 21st), the sun on my horizon was out of sight to the north, and very early in the morning. While that seems negative, in fact it’s just that our planet’s tilt is tipped in the sun’s direction, meaning we see it earlier on our horizon (our planet spinning around): like looking around a corner before reaching it.

So there are pros and cons, positives and negatives, and that’s why I created the mistYmuse: to celebrate the positives at a time of year that is considered the most difficult in the north; especially in the UK, where we don’t have Thanksgiving to celebrate at the end of November like in the USA, filling the gap after Halloween/Bonfire Night.

Next week it is False Dawn Week, when sunrise times are at their latest before the clocks go back in the UK.

Sunny Hot Day Poetry (Pronounced Poetray)

When blue sky thinking becomes blank canvas reality, on clear hot sunny days, work goes out the window, calling one to follow…
Sunny hot weather all day
frees mind from emergency
planning to experience before
clouds arrive and rain does pour!
The above are a couple more sunny hot weather poetic philosophy snippets, created to fit the Facebook format; which suits my ADHD creative spark: and why the epic magnum opus XaW Files: Beyond Humanity was such a marathon writing ordeal for me; mirroring the 202 episodes of X-Files at the time!
After some flooding in the UK in February, spring has been the sunniest and driest on record in many parts. I don’t know if it’s climate change, but I do know it coincided with the end of mistYmuse 2019/20; but don’t think that’s anything to do with it… although I did give the sun a lot of love during it!?

Half Year Hair Personal Experiment

After yesterday’s blog had photos of me, a doctor of philosophy, at the start of October 2019, half a year later of not cutting hair or shaving over the coldest six months; and  self-isolating ‘beyond humanity‘ nearly all the time!; which included mistYmuse 2019/20, I looked like this:

Start of Half Year Self Experiment Photos

Inspired by werewolf folklore, a moon or two before the start of mistYmuse 2019/20, and after a decent summer of exercise, at the start of October just after my 54th birthday, I decided to stop cutting my hair and shaving. These are the last photos beforehand (for art and science rather than bravado and machismo):

Nostradamus and Me: Beyond Humanity!

Like Nostradamus, I think my writing includes a lot that could be considered prophetic for the current Covid-19 pandemic. There was a theme of self-isolation and distancing towards the end of the greenYgrey era, culminating with the apocalyptical ending, and title ‘Beyond Humanity’. It was a general feeling though, combining terrorism and overpopulation, rather than a clear sighting.

I didn’t see the extent of it in Europe and the USA even when it was making its away across from China. The first reports of hundreds of deaths per day in Italy were a big shock!

Circumstantial Coincidences?

When I posted a link to a previous post containing reference to my Children of the Quorn (Children of the Corn parody that preceded the emergence of Greta Thunberg and the school strike movement – I don’t know if she was inspired by it though!?) last week the blog post was mostly about criticising Ozzy for selling a toy celebrating him biting the head off a bat; the coronavirus is thought to have originated in bats, before getting into the food chain in Wuhan.

When I looked for the first mention of mistYmuse on this site (inspired by the end of mistYmuse 2019/20, and my mapping of my horizon posts this week) this morning the unrelated 2018 post’s main photo is of Gwyneth Paltrow, star of Contagion, a disaster movie that gives a much clearer prediction of the Covid crisis: starting in China from a bat. Director Steven Soderbergh said that making the movie made him think a real pandemic was only a matter of time!

Over the last couple of years I also watched the Ancient Aliens episode on plagues and epidemics, also from 2011, and also saying another pandemic was due. It focused on how the Fatima sighting (generally claimed as sun/religious [Wikipedia], but they think could have been a UFO) had preceded the Spanish Flu pandemic a century ago. It thinks aliens use pandemics to control the human population. I think that’s a slim possibility, but lets humanity off the hook; as blaming higher powers such as gods too.

Modern Shamen or Creative Thinker?

I have had a lot of sights, thoughts and dreams that I think could be considered prophetic, but they are all unproveable, and most people probably have them too, and if they predict disaster they aren’t usually acted upon anyway (as the current crisis shows, governments and workers are reluctant to stop the economy/travel even when disasters are happening !) so there’s no point claiming them… kind of like the vague muddled messages I saw people describing in the ‘Mothman Prophecies‘ movie about the  Point Pleasant bridge collapse.

There is one bit of data that does back up my claim that I had some kind of transcendental thoughts during the writing of XaW Files: Beyond Humanity: I had by far my best Fantasy Football Season (it was also the season Leicester totally upset the odds by winning the real Premier League, which was probably a factor?.. and probably not connected?.. as I hope the chairman’s later helicopter crash outside their ground wasn’t!).

XaW Files: Beyond Humanity

So I think XaW Files should only be bought as a brilliant book of fiction with deep thinking writer insights, but as Neil Young said about his songs, he doesn’t write them, he just writes them down; I haven’t felt like writing fiction much since, but have written a couple of short stories!

Do I think I’m as good as most of the ‘Western shamen’ making money out of it: probably, yes.
Do I think I’m as good as adult-lifelong religious shamen and meditators: probably, not.

Do I want to think myself special: Yes
Do I want to be blamed for disasters: No

So if I can’t stop disasters, and am just going to be called a charlatan, I’ll stick to just being a writer and poet; and I still believe in my work… and that it’s been criminally overlooked… but if you’ve read it, as more people seem to do than sales show… then that’s something for me.

Now, I think I’m best suited to little poetic philosophy snippets that I freely post in spontaneous prose on Facebook!

 

Fatboy Slim Closes mistYmuse 2019/20

We’re overtime on mistYmuse 2019/20 now, as we started early in October last year – it runs for the traditionally toughest four months of the year weather-wise, and puts a good spin on it by focusing on the late sunrises in the first two months, and increasing light in the second half.

British Summer Time to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) / UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)

In October the sunrises seemed to be getting towards the late sunrise times of mid-December, which are ideal for the start of most people’s days, being between 8-9am across the UK; as well as giving more darkness for sleep.

As I wrote in a blog here on fmpoetry (October 22nd), focusing on the Leeds time, mistYmuse central!:

‘The sunrise times will reach their BST late peak on Saturday October 26th at 07.53, and with the clocks going back to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)/(UTC) overnight, they’ll go back to 06.55 – back earlier than the sunrise time of September 25th (06.56).
They’ll continue getting later a couple of minutes a day, and will reach Saturday’s sunrise time of 07.53 again just over a month later on November 27th.’

GMT/UTC to BST

Now, in contrast, we changed from GMT/UTC to BST  last week, moving the clocks forward an hour from 05.48 on the 28th March, to 06. 45 on the 29th March; with the three minutes difference the normal process for this time of year.

The sunrises (really the time when we can see the sun, due to our planet’s axis tilt and orbit around our star, according to astronomy) continue getting about three minutes earlier (as if we’re climbing a stairs in a skyscraper for a better view, with each day a step).

As it took just under a month to get back to the time before the hour clock change in October/November, it will reach the March 28th/29th time of 05.48 over the 22nd to 23rd April: 5.49 to 5.46.

So enjoy the darker mornings and later sunrises this month, and for all those who’ve completed mistYmuse 2019/20 I praise you! (it seems a long time since Scooter opened it!!):

Try not to look directly at the sun; or spend too much time in front of screens.. and avoid groomers and covid like the plague!

Looking on the bright side, I read there’s a bright new comet in the sky that should be visible to the naked eye soon…

Sunrise Before BST puts Clocks Forward an Hour

Last sunrise before British Summer Time (BST) starts tomorrow, with the clocks being put forward an hour overnight. So this morning’s sunrise was 05.48 and tomorrow’s will be 06.45 (going earlier 3 minutes really, apart from the hour change, all the way back to 04.35 (03.35 really) on the June summer solstice).

The sunrise is just south of the big tree marking my visibility boundary and a long way from the buildings it rose between on March 6th, just over 3 weeks ago. They are shown in the third photo.

The Time and Date website says today’s sunrise position is 83 degrees east. At the December solstice it was 131 degrees east, which is over the park focused on in the original photos more than a decade ago, and south of the city centre, visible at the bottom of the cover photo. The buildings in the above photo (and March 2nd and 6th) are north of the city centre.

On the June summer solstice the sunrise will be at 46 degrees east. Those figures don’t mean much to me either, but if you can remember them, and where the sun or moon are when they rise on them, you can know where the sunrise or moonrise is going to be in the future; as I did this morning, as the first time I used them was to record a moonrise in that location!

 

 

New POP Art Spring Equinox Photos

mistYmuse ended on Equinox in unplanned and unseen when taking photos (but no colour changing of the photos; only editing is one cropped) new POP (PinkyOrangePurple) art, mirroring the greenYgrey world:

If anybody is still unsure about coronavirus, and how to avoid it, I’ve been following it quite closely on the news, so please ask me questions if you have any.

I’m trying to tread the greenYgrey line there between being helpful and looking like I’m doing PR!

The books that ended the greenYgrey(era):