The Heavens speaking through eclipses

 I woke up early this morning with that same 'earthquake' phenomenon where something in my room was shaking/ vibrating very loudly.  I couldn't feel any shaking myself, or at least I wasn't aware of it, I just heard whatever it was shaking.

Curiously, though, at the same time an owl outside of my window was hooting in a persistent way, and for a pretty long time.  This was strange because in the 8+ years we have lived on this farm now, I do not remember ever hearing an owl.  Which I guess in itself is strange, since there are so many other types of birds that make themselves at home here and love to make their presence heard.  No owls, though.

Anyway, I think I just went back to sleep at some point, with something shaking in my room and an owl hooting up a storm outside.

Eclipse:  The Heavens Speak

Yesterday, I stumbled across a blog post that had the following logo for a conference that was happening this April.

The group in question calls themselves "the Remnant", and are comprised, as I understand it, of mostly disaffected Mormons who are trying to return to something of Joseph Smith's original vision of Mormonism, whatever that would be defined as.

They are led by a man named Denver Snuffer, who I think lives in Utah, and has written a number of books, some of them highly critical of the Mormon church (I haven't read any of them).  Interestingly, in an article I found while looking up Mr. Snuffer, we have Doug himself giving some of his own commentary on the Remnant movement.  Here is the link (the article is from several years ago):

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/local/2017/08/27/denver-snuffers-offshoot-is-drawing-away-mormons-with-the-mantra-god-can-talk-to-you-too-but-will-these-freewheeling-fellowships-last/

My understanding is that there is a connection between Mr. Snuffer and Doug.  Mr. Snuffer at one point, I believe, attended some of Doug's classes/ group sessions in SLC.  Mr. Snuffer was also very highly complimentary of the Cultural History of the Book of Mormon series that Doug wrote (and it is well done and interesting), and you can even read some of his reviews on Amazon for that series.

And their connection makes sense.  Two smart people, disaffected with the Mormon church who have some insightful things to say, and who both are driven by powerful and strange spiritual experiences.  Mr. Snuffer's appeal is likely quite a bit broader as you don't really have to go down the path of involving JRR Tolkien's cosmology into your spiritual worldview, however, and because of this I am not sure they are still speaking or working with each other (though I am not sure how much of that was happening in the first place - I just don't know).

In any case, this isn't a post about either Mr. Snuffer or Doug - I don't know enough about the former, and I know and suspect too much about the latter, to wish to discuss either anymore here in this post.

So, back to that logo.

The group is calling it the "Remnant Eclipse Conference", it seems.  Here is a link I found to their homepage.

https://remnanteclipseconference.com/

It is being held in upstate New York.  Apparently the eclipse will pass right over, or fairly close to, the town of Palmyra.  Palmyra is very relevant to Mormonism as it is where Joseph Smith lived, and where a number of important events occurred, such as Joseph's First Vision, the publication of the Book of Mormon, and the establishment of the church as an official organization in nearby Fayette.  Afterward, the church moved to Ohio.  Interestingly, the total eclipse will also pass directly over Kirtland, Ohio.

The eclipse occurs on April 8.  The time of totality at the venue this conference has selected is apparently 3:21pm.  Given discussions of rockets on this blog, that time struck me as funny (3-2-1 being something like a countdown before lift-off).

I did some thinking around the picture or logo itself, as it seems to invert some things I think will happen from the kind of eclipse I have been primarily focused on here (i.e., the linkage of the Anor and Ithil Stones).

If you look closely, directly under the eclipse is a barren tree.  This is presumably because there is no light directly under the eclipse, as shown by the shadow.  As one moves either to the left or right, and away from the eclipse totality, one receives more light, and thus healthier, greener trees.  Which makes sense from a standpoint of how light works in nature, so I get where the logo designer/ artist is going with this.

However, I wanted to point out that, again, the eclipse I have in mind works exactly opposite of this.  In the theoretical logo in my head that developed as I looked at this drawing, the tree directly below that eclipse would the greenest, fullest tree in the forest, and the light shining on it would be the brightest.  As you moved left or right, the shadow would grow proportionately, and the trees would die out and look like that center tree.

Anyway, that thought just came to my mind as I looked at that logo and thought of the story it is trying to tell.  I think it is inferring that the eclipse is a bit of a nadir, from which the light will begin to grow steadily after.  A new beginning.  My eclipse is also a new beginning, but the linkage of the Sun and Moon is a climax or zenith of light, or something like that.  

And, of course, I noticed the tagline "the Heavens Speak" as being associated with the eclipse imagery.  This is exactly what I think will happen when the Anor and Ithil Stones are linked together.

Another interesting thing to note:  My youngest son was born on April 7, so right in the middle of this group's conference, and I guess sandwiched right in between the anniversary of the founding of Mormonism as a church organization (April 6) and the solar eclipse (April 8).  He will turn 8 this year, which in Mormonism is a big milestone year.  If we were still active members of the church, this would be the year he was baptized.  But we aren't, so he won't be (at least as a member of the LDS church).

His case is a funny one, and in some ways was a catalyst for some much of what has followed for both my and my family.  By the time he was born in 2016, my wife and I had already decided that we would be leaving active membership in the church.  In Mormon tradition, a new baby is blessed and given a name in the church.  We did this for our older two children, but would not be doing this for our youngest son.  This was a big deal, because it meant telling my side of the family (my wife was a convert to the church, who I baptized in Boston, so for her it wasn't that big of a deal) that we were no longer active and weren't going to be doing the baby blessing.

Any Mormon who has had to have that conversation knows it isn't a fun one.  Another milestone that should have happened a year later would have been the baptism of my oldest son, and we also had to break the disappointing news that this wasn't happening, either.  So, none of our children are baptized as part of that church, or any church, for that matter.

In any case, as far as the LDS church is concerned, our youngest son doesn't exist.  He isn't on any church records.  The older two get letters from the local congregation's primary organization sometimes, and every now and then the local missionaries text or try to call me and see if they can come by (the local sister missionaries actually tried calling just recently when I was out in Keystone).  But they don't know about him.  I sometimes think that is how he wanted it.

Anyway, I looked over at William Tychonievich's blog earlier and noted he also had an eclipse run-in that he briefly covered in his latest post "The universal eclipse".