Intergalactic Freak Show

Day 12 (Saturday 12th December 2015)

12 men have walked on the moon (and each of them have only done it once). 

First were Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin in 1969 (Apollo 11) the 2 astronauts most people can name, 
then Pete Conrad & Alan Bean (Apollo 12) who were on the moon for 2 days,

3rd were Alan Shepard & Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14) who undertook seismic experiments and played improvised golf,
they were followed by David Scott & James Irwin (Apollo 15) the 1st people to drive a lunar rover,

next John Young & Charles Duke conduced the 1st mission to the lunar highlands (Apollo 16) and
finally Eugene Cernan & Harrison (Jack) Schmitt (in 1972 as part of Apollo 17
Cernan scratched his daughter's initials on the moon's surface,

given there is no weather such as rain or wind, the letters are likely still to be there).

Image: Moonwalk, Charles Duke collecting samples Apollo 16. Credit: NASA

Today's post is by the awesome Wae West. Genna-wae Webster, known as Wae West, lives in Durban, South Africa. She is inspirational, creative and brave. A pioneer in fashion and creation (she is Director of SAM (South African Made) and specialises in lingerie and novelty garments under the WaeWest, Hoodwink and Miss Muffet brands - all of which source local materials, designers and producers under a co-operative model. Wae also is responsible for a retail concept with a flagship store in the Umhlanga Centre in the Rocks area in Durban. She is a regular blogger and user of social media to share her views and thoughts, (Her Twitter handle is @waewest) and she is about to launch a Vlog. She is fascinated by change, evolution, truth, challenge and escaping convention - as you will see if you read her blog, NoWae. 

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Trail blazer, celestial body or long-haired star, are but a few names we can use that epitomise a comet.  

Comet Lovejoy

We live in a topsy turvy world, where nothing is as it seems.  Everything that is supposed to move forward, goes back. We are regressive more often than progressive.  War means starting a war to keep war at bay.  A war on terror evokes fear in the innocent lives who have to live through it.
  

We are still very much that barbaric species that pillaged villages in ancient times in the name of a great ruler or deity.  

16th century French Buccaneers sacking town on Spanish Maine, by Theodor de Bry

All that has changed is he who ranks highest in scientific advancement, rules.  

Guns vs. arrows - Zulu warriors

I bet flying over our Earth every couple of years, or decades, even centuries must make anyone want to SMH.  The stars around us are quiet observers of our fate.  With passing traffic from fly-by wonders like Halley or SOHO rolling their metaphorical eyes at us as we evolve but do not change.

We live in a world where we forget to look up because we are too busy looking at our past or ahead to our future.  The only "now-living" we are doing is by inducing our own voyeurism as we scroll through timeline feeds from one social media platform target to another.  

A mere distraction from the pressure of life.  We don't want to take any chances to truly live in case we fail.  And yet this dimension we are in, has such beautiful potential to provide us with the instruments to link up every man, woman and child to one another in a web of collective consciousness.

But a new type of heavy lifting enters our path in the form of burdens of the soul and not the physical weight.  Reign of terror and images the like, cloud our lives on a daily basis, deterring us from a love-soaked psyche.  Our elemental world connects us still at our core, its just a little tougher to see through it.  We are not so much, "if you cut me, do I not bleed" but rather, we ALL bleed in synchronicity. 

With science fast approaching more discoveries in the spiritual plane, where it's not even as much as 6 degrees separating us anymore.  Having 75% of our bodies made up of water, it's no wonder that something as influential as the moon has an effect on us.  With its tidal manipulation, our bodies are mere insect-sized vessels by comparison.  It's becoming more obvious that even men can get what I call FMS (Full Moon Stress) much like the female PMS, only brought on by the full moon.

The earth is just a spec in this universe. One would be incredibly arrogant and ignorant to assume we were alone in this big wide 'verse.  Even today the power of the stars plays a major role in the destiny of our lives.

Harbingers trail the night sky, bringing with them messages from God knows where.  Ancient cultures saw them as illusionary messages from a sorrowful woman towing her long locks behind her and even symbolic of a sword sparking murmurs of impending war.  Prophecies like Sibylline Oracles and the Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamesh" stem from the comets tracing the night sky.

Comet seen over Istanbul prior to the earthquake in 1556

My theory is comets are meant to lasso us out of the quicksand in our life.  Those moments when we are just existing.  When we need a little cage rattling done to awaken our souls, that's when we are are tugged out by our wrists.  It may seem a bit like a rebirth.  These night sky dancers bring with them a forced change.  We are shocked into submission and if we don't submit to the change we may die defending our old regime.  The illumination that comes from this passing stardust has torn down great leaders like Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte, both meeting their demise as comets trailed overhead.

Halley's comet can be seen embroidered in the top left of this section of the Bayeux Tapestry
It appeared 6 months prior to the Norman invasion of England in 1066

Whether we observe slain leaders or celebs, the myth of celestial objects such as these is they are generally closely linked to major natural disasters like storms and earthquakes, which again, is really just another way to shake us up a little and cleanse our life, dusting the clutter off our path.  There's nothing like being set free from the mundane.

Woodcut from 1668 showing a comet as the harbinger of doom

So I say it again, the world is an upside down mess.  You can do no right, because you can do no wrong.  Our values are measured on a society we live in and not the foundation of our spirit.  We think with heads more than our hearts.  All hope is not lost, but I do sometimes wonder if comets were intergalactic public transport, would there be a bunch of aliens from all over the galaxy ridiculing us as they passed by us like we were just another fun fair filled with freaks.

Freak Show at Fair in Vermont, 1941

Armchair Astronomy - Man on the Moon

Day 9 (Wednesday 9th December 2015)

9% - the amount water expands when it freezes

Today's out-of-this world post comes from Niall Gavin, a much respected learning and development specialist who came into the arena via technology, after a period as a professional actor. Niall writes a great blog, "A Little About A Lot". Niall has had a tough 2015 - including a significant life-saving operation, followed shortly thereafter by being made redundant, so I am very grateful that he has found the time to include a post in this Advent Series. He is active and popular on social media - you can follow him on Twitter via @niallgavinuk. I would like to stress that the following post is NOT a nod to the John Lewis Christmas advertisement (this is much more inspiring). Niall, partially due to his own experiences, is an advocate of the need for lives to have a meaning and purpose.

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Being something of an armchair astronomer (you need to know that I know a little about a lot…), I was recently asked to write a short, 300 word piece, on the subject of ‘The Moon’, for a local community newsletter. That was the extent of the brief; so I wrote and submitted the following:

TITLE: "There is no dark side of the Moon really..."

Towards the end of Pink Floyd's seminal 1973 album, Dark Side of The Moon, a character can be heard saying "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact, it's all dark." Sounds deeply mystical and meaningful, doesn't it? But it's wrong.

We assume that, because we always see the same 'face' of the Moon turned towards us, the other side must be dark. 

However, we see the different phases of the Moon each month - New, 1st Quarter, Half, 3rd Quarter, New - when the sun illuminates it from different angles as it orbits the Earth every 29 days. 

And remember, when we have an eclipse, the Moon comes between us and the Sun and blocks it from view for a few magical moments. At that point 'our' side is the dark side and the Sun is shining fully onto the other side.

Partial lunar eclipse

We also assume that the Moon doesn’t rotate like the Earth does (our 24hr day). But it actually rotates one full turn during those 29 days!

Don't believe me? Draw a Man in the Moon face onto a ping-pong ball (your ‘Moon’), turn it to face another larger, spherical object (your ‘Earth’), and then, WITHOUT TWISTING your hand, move it in a circle round your Earth. You'll see the 'face' eventually turns away from the 'Earth' until, half way round, it has turned its back and faces away from the Earth altogether! To keep the same 'face' towards the earth, you HAVE to twist your ‘Moon’ round so that by the time you return to the starting point, you have rotated it by one full turn. Our Earth Month is one Lunar Day!

The truth is there is no dark side of the Moon really. Full Stop. (End of article)

So why am I sharing this article with you? What has this got to do with comets and coal, and my professional life and interests - or indeed, yours? Well, the clue is the last paragraph, where I suggest a practical exercise to explain the concept. It’s not a theoretical exercise. I wanted to make an out-of-this-world scientific fact into something tangible. Having read up the science bit (fttp://www.universetoday.com/19725/lunar-day/), I did it myself to be sure I fully understood the principle, and then I talked my son through doing the same thing with a grape and an orange, to check that it was an understandable - and do-able - practical exercise. He learned something he didn’t know about our Moon, without us getting bogged down in complex discussions about orbital dynamics and tidal locking.

You see, I’m not a book learner; I need to do and see things for myself for them to make sense. That’s how I developed as an IT trainer many years ago, by learning to use software for myself. For example, any time I had to write a new word processing course, I used the actual software itself to write the course materials – Word, WordPerfect, AmiPro etc. - so I could walk the talk when it came to sharing with my students. It's how I'm learning to blog!

My limited knowledge and understanding of astronomy came initially from buying a pair of binoculars over 20 years ago and pointing them at the moon (I was really trying to see Halley's Comet - never did). I subscribed to an astronomy magazine, which really whetted my appetite to see more. So I bought a telescope and hunted down some of the planets - Mars, Venus, Jupiter - and I will never forget the thrill I experienced the first time I saw the Rings of Saturn for myself through that telescope. Theory became reality by translating it into action, discovery and by looking closer.

Rings of Saturn (as seen by Hubble, NOT via Niall's telescope)
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

That’s how I learn, and I’ve used that approach with many others over the years in IT Learning & Development. Make it real, make it challenging, make it fun and they'll be with you all the way. Don’t, and they won’t.

What are your techniques for keeping your training alive for your learners?