It’s difficult to get a really good photo of The Terminator through an inch of laminated glass, here a full moon is just rising above the horizon as night approaches from the east.
I'm lucky to see some wonderful sights from the air. It's a great privilege to witness our planet from above and I get to see things that can't be seen anywhere else.
Recently I've been treated to some beautiful sightings of the Solar Terminator which always fills me with awe and inspiration.
The Solar Terminator, also known as the 'grey-line' or the 'twilight zone' is the point where day meets night. I most commonly see it as night falls and I get the impression of a huge lid closing over me as if I was inside a giant silver tureen. The Terminator of course doesn't actually move at all, it is a tangential line of light from the sun. It is the Earth that moves beneath the Terminator and as our particular piece of the Earth rolls beneath it we transition from daylight to darkness.
In fact there are two Terminators opposite each other; one bringing dawn and the other dusk. Somehow the dusk terminator is more striking and obvious from the air.
It is possible to out-run it but you need an aircraft much faster than anything I get to play with.
I love witnessing those beautiful phenomena that demonstrate a bigger reality, a greater perspective. We take the rising and setting of the sun for granted; it gets dark, we go to bed; we wake up and it's light again. However, there are few people who aren't moved in some way by the sunset. It speaks to us viscerally and I think the magical light of dawn is a little secret shared by those of us who work shifts and by those who specifically take the trouble to see it.
It's easy to forget our place, that the sun and stars do not track across our sky but it is us that revolves inexorably beneath them. The Terminator is a glorious reminder of this.
We are on an oblate spheroid rock of unfathomable beauty revolving at 900 miles per hour and orbiting the sun at 66,600 mph bathed alternately in sunshine and starlight. Sights like The Terminator give me a thrilling and tangible sense of this reality. I get to see it with my own eyes and I get a small sense of our place in space.
Another satisfying thought that occurred to me whilst sitting in the woods is that with the approach of each dawn and each dusk, every day, there comes a flurry of birdsong; some animals begin to wake and others begin to sleep, plants lift their heads towards the light and others close their petals for the night. Just ahead of The Terminator is a tide of birdsong that unceasingly encircles the Earth like an avian Mexican wave.
The tracker and survivalist, Tom Brown Jnr, speaks often about the concentric rings of nature and this has to be the biggest and most wonderful of them all.
Jonny
