Journey to Light

Recently, in my deconstructive analysis of the Biblical book of Genesis, I examined two parts: Genesis 1: 1-8 Genesis 1: 14-18 I encourage readers to investigate these parts as it will help in understanding this article. If we reconstruct the early sections of Genesis to reflect a logical sequence, it reads like this, in two distinct parts – one about a time and place before heaven, and one about heaven itself: In the beginning there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the waters. God said, "Let there be light" and there was light. God saw that light was good, and God divided light from darkness. God said, "Let there be a vault (or more correctly, a “division” or “separation”) between the waters to divide the waters in two." And so it was. God made the vault, and it divided the water above the vault from the water under the vault. God called the vault "heaven".  Now there was a time when the earth did not exist. After creating hea...

Since I had my first experience of a full Aurora display back in October 2024, Aurora hunting has become a fascination for me. The “mission” of capturing an Aurora display on camera is quite demanding: 1) you need to track solar storm activity and see if those storms are accompanied by Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) that are earth directed; 2) you need to get the earth arrival time of CMEs right (which is very difficult); 3) you need to get to a dark-sky site (where there is minimal light pollution); 4) you need to have clear skies (free of cloud cover); 5) you need to know what you’re doing with your camera settings (once you locate the “invisible” light display in the skies). Then there is the matter of going out into the dark night until the early hours of the morning on a “work night” (it’s no fun rushing into the office after only 3 hours of sleep). On top of all that, there is never a guarantee that the Aurora will put in a good show – change in direction or strength of solar wind...

In anticipation of Autumn and the good light that comes with it, I could not wait for the recent long weekend in March and the opportunity to grab some photographs. Unfortunately, the Australian Summer is not retiring quietly, and it continues to “scream” with its bright light and heat.  To work around the challenge of Australian Summer and its heat and fire risks (and accompanying travel restrictions, for those who are sensible), my son and I got out either at pre-dawn, or late evening (way after sunset).  The photo accompanying this post is of one of the stages in the Olinda Falls (in Victoria, Australia). It was taken at sunrise. Lying across the creek banks, just above the waterfall is the trunk of a fallen tree. It looks like a thin branch, but that’s just an illusion of scale; the trunk was at least 30 inches thick, and easily 24 feet long.  Given the hot, dry Summer we have had in 2025 we were blessed to have a reasonably good gush of water coming through. I delibe...