The Moon and The Sun

I've done it before, but, hey, I got up in the middle of the night and stood on the front porch in my nightgown and bare feet (leaning against the side wall and holding my breath) to get this handheld shot. Earlier in the evening, the face of the moon had some lovely horizontal clouds across its face, but by the time I got up at 2am,  the sky was clear and sparkling with stars. It was actually almost balmy, out there on the porch, but I confess that I wasn't prepared to spend much time out there, so I was pleased to get such a clear shot. 

We used to visit the Alpine village of Bellino in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its walls are decorated with sundials, each of which has a motto. We bought a series of photographs of Bellino and its sundials by Davide Dutto which hang in our living room. One of them has the motto, "Il sole nasce per tutti--the sun rises for everybody" I have put the Bellino photo in he extras

If we looked directly at the sun it would fry our retinas, but the moon casts a  gentler, more benign light, and there  is something about being able to contemplate a full moon that brings to mind all the blippers, no matter what corner of the world they live in who are also  looking up at her in the middle of the night.