It's a special day on our calendar, in time.
This early morning, beginning at about 1:30 a.m. in Mexico City, the Earth's shadow in the Sun overcame the Moon behind it, turning it orange-brown in our nighttime. The shadow of our planet moved across the Moon for a total lunar eclipse, representing an extraordinary and sacred point "between the past and the future."
Tonight, at 5:38 p.m. local time, the solstice hit. The last time a lunar eclipse occured on the winter solstice was either 1638 or 1544. The next time it will happen, unless the Singularity arrives, we'll probably all be dead: 2094.
We sat shivering on a rooftop last night, gazing up, speckles of nothing in the infinite wideness of the galaxy and universe. The stars danced. For a few moments I suddenly wished I was in space in a jetliner, closer.
In Náhuatl, the etymology of "México," the place we know of today as Mexico City, is "el ombligo de la luna," or "bellybutton of the moon." I keep a belief system that ties all this together for me. But right now, the spirit benevolently moves my tongue and typing fingers into silence.