Wonder: Joe's Up Early for a Planetary Alignment!

Vince Kern  0:03  
Caution. Move along. There's nothing to see here.

Joe Luther  0:07  
Oh, yes, there is. You just wait.

Vince Kern  0:11  
Oh, no. Have you been wondering again?

Joe Luther  0:13  
Oh, yeah. wait to hear this one.

Vince Kern  0:17  
Hey, look at you in the studio today man here all your like cash. Mr. Casual today?

Joe Luther  0:21  
Yeah, well, I am beaming today. Let

Vince Kern  0:23  
me tell you. You're beaming.

Joe Luther  0:25  
Yeah, you know, I think I told you I've been getting up a little early from time to time. Yeah. And I've actually at first I thought it was an affliction. But lately, I'm embracing it. Because you know, you can get up and do a lot of things while you're fresh. And there's nobody really out there, you know, disturbing the peace or anything like,

Vince Kern  0:45  
well, first of all, you are an affliction. You know what, I have one, but that goes

Joe Luther  0:49  
without saying. But so. Yeah, so getting back to why I was up early this morning last night. After going to a friend's daughter's swim me it was hotter than heck. And I went to bed early because I knew that today and tomorrow are like these unusually great days to see the planetary alignment. Oh, yeah, I

Vince Kern  1:13  
read something about that. Yeah, it was it like four or five.

Joe Luther  1:18  
So when they die, what they claim is that there are five naked eye in quotes, planets that were able to see that's eyes, I mean, planets that naked I guess all planets are naked to some degree, right? But no, you can see them with your naked eye with our naked eye. But in this period of time, right now that I guess only happens every I think the last time was 20 some years ago, whatever. You can see all five of them kind of lined up in a line together. And what makes this even more interesting is that the moon actually falls into line with the rest of them to wow,

Vince Kern  1:56  
five of them. I've seen a couple before.

Joe Luther  2:00  
Anyhow, I get excited about that kind of stuff. As you know, you and you and I love to talk about, you know, various times in life when we're looking up in wonder. And that kind of thing. I don't know. There are times I wonder if I should have been in drama mer because you can just get me to tune everything else out if there's a good documentary on about, you know, space. Yeah, Hubble telescope,

Vince Kern  2:25  
a lot of math in astronomy.

Joe Luther  2:27  
Exactly. That was what exactly that in statistics for Business School is a couple of things that kind of weeded me out of doing that kind of thing. But I like thinking about it anyhow.

Vince Kern  2:38  
So you're in your casual clothes? Yes. In my well. Yeah.

Joe Luther  2:41  
So last night, I was went to bed after a very hot day. And but I went to bed early, a little exhausted. And I thought, well, you know, this could be timely. I'm not. I'm not at the point where I want to set my alarm to get up to look at planets. But they claim that before dawn is when you can see it best. And so I went to bed early and kind of told myself well, if you wake up early like you have been you'll be up early enough to take a look. And sure enough, I woke up around 420 In the morning, no alarm, no alarm, and I was actually very happy to have woken up actually felt like a kid on Christmas. Oh, yeah. Because you know how it is, you know, like up on Christmas. Like, oh, is it time yet? Is it time? Yeah. This time I looked at my clock in out because I wanted to make sure it wasn't one in the morning. And it was 420 and I was very happy to see that. So I popped out of bed and I was still in my T shirt. And I did put on my my sweat shorts. You know my workout shorts and, and went down kind of like a kid at Christmas because I wanted to see first like,

Vince Kern  3:48  
Okay, is it cloudy is wondering what the gifts were?

Joe Luther  3:51  
Yeah, is it cloudy is it had Santa come? You know, and I looked outside and oh my god. Like, suddenly I saw that. It's cool. It's crisp. It's not humid. It's not hazy. And I could see the moon I could see a planet next to it. I wasn't sure what it was. But it was bright. And I was like Oh man, I'm sorry. God, I was so excited. I did feel like it was Christmas morning. So I got my flip flops and but I could only see you know a little bit because of the trees trees. Lots

Vince Kern  4:20  
of trees around here. Yeah, turns out that's

Joe Luther  4:22  
not always a blessing having a big tree here.

Vince Kern  4:25  
I thought it was when you want to look at some with your naked eye. Yeah, because

Joe Luther  4:28  
what they said is you need to be in a environment where you can see the horizon because a couple I spoke apparently, Venus which you know, was a little higher, but Mercury was really at the so I guess it's certain time they all lined up, you know and you could see them with the naked eye. So I started walking down the street very kind of just been my flip flops and just like that. Yeah, in black.

Vince Kern  4:55  
In 30 In the morning,

Joe Luther  4:56  
black shorts, black T shirt, flip flops. There's

Vince Kern  4:58  
anybody else out there

Joe Luther  5:00  
No, but I'm sure the neighbors might have been peering wondering, you know, I didn't have black paint on my face. But I was wondering, I wonder what the police would think if they drive by right now. But yeah, sorry to distract walking down the street. And my goodness, though I get to the, I finally decided to go down, there's a school at the end of our street. And I thought, well, maybe the parking lot or their field, I'll be able to see the horizon. So I didn't really quite know what I needed to see. But as soon as I got to the end of my street, to where I could see a long distance, it was all lined up. And it was all in alignment. I just, and I was so excited. There was, you know, across the kind of a busy road there across the street, and, and I just sat there, like you and I do in awe and wonder and was staring at it all. And I thought, oh, wait a minute. I've got that app. You know, the one you told me about?

Vince Kern  5:48  
Night Sky or something sky sky view guide.

Joe Luther  5:51  
How you you? Yes, Sky View app. Great app. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I pulled it out. Because I wanted to I, you know, I had read the article that I wasn't sure which ones were in which position. And so I, so I put the app up. And I don't know if people know how it works. But it doesn't actually like look through your camera and interpret the light that you're seeing. It can literally be rain storming, and you can pull it up to the sky, you could actually turn it down to the ground, and it'll show you what people in China or whatever, whoever is directly below us are looking at. So it but it knows, like from your direction of, of where you're pointing the camera, it knows what you're looking at. And so I could see, okay, well, the one that was the brightest near the horizon was Venus. And then I looked just below the horizon was mercury. So I, mercury, what you're supposed to be able to see wasn't visible, but all the others and it went, it went Venus. I think moon and then Mars, Jupiter. And then Saturn, those were the naked ones that I could see Mercury, the fifth one was below the horizon. But what's even more cool is that as I was looking at through this app, they show and what's cool is the app shows you like visual pictures of what the planets look like, you know, like the Saturn, Saturn's rings and Jupiter with its little eye and, and Mars being orange in that. But anyhow, it started showing the other planets as well. And I was I was blown away to see that. Yeah, you can see the five naked plants, but you can the other three are also in alignment at this time. They didn't mention that.

Unknown Speaker  7:31  
Whoa. So the naked eye didn't reveal everything. No, but

Joe Luther  7:35  
what it did kind of like it's just like I had these this kind of like, Wait a minute. Is this like too real? Do believe like, Is it always like this? And we just can't see it? Or is this really like some bizarre? And I start thinking, Well, wait a minute, why are they all lined up? And I was thinking about those models from from grade school of, you know, the planets all lined up, you know, when you create Styrofoam balls on sticks? Yeah, they aren't always on one plane. But if I remember, one goes in that in an opposite order, opposite direction from the others. I don't know if it's Neptune or whatever, not experts on this podcast, and just we're experts at being in wonder, right? But anyhow, that's what I saw. And I came back home and I was sitting, I was just I was pumped up, you know, and then I was sitting in my, in my living room. And I thought, wait a minute, I wonder if I can look at this now on this app. And sure enough, I'm sitting there in my, my living room, even though the house walls and everything, and I'm, and I'm just sitting there, like, wow, these planets are lined up. And then it got me thinking you don't need visual, eye proof to know that the planets are lying. We actually it and I thought, Well, why do people fly to the other side of the world? Or is that song goes to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun? Why do people do that thing? You know, because I guess it's unusual. But sometimes do we need, like visual proof to remind us?

Vince Kern  9:07  
That's interesting. So there's more out there than what we can see. Santa brought you this gift of the universal alignment and then realizing that there's so much more out there that

Joe Luther  9:21  
we are part of is it more than we can see him more than we perceive? Or more we're willing to, to? To remind ourselves like, I guess I'm questioning my thought is why do we need visual? You know, affirm men are visual proof that this is going on when it's actually going on all the time? Can we

Vince Kern  9:43  
stop and sense it by opening our our our energy to just realize that and even that the planetary system is such a small minut part of the universe anyway,

Joe Luther  9:55  
right? So it's always going on around always going on But I guess what I found fun about it was that anyhow, you know, I don't know, I guess I just wanted to carry on about it. But what I found fun about it was after, after I, you know, so I thought well maybe go out in the backyard and, and, you know, see it from out there. And it was already getting light and it was, you know, I think I couldn't see Mars anymore. I could still see Jupiter. In in the trees were covering up more, you know, had to go to a lot of effort really to see this by walking down the street. And probably most people in my neighborhood, you know, didn't. But I think that, you know, it just kind of reminds me that's what you and I are about, you know, we are friends in wonder. And today that was my wonderment.

Vince Kern  10:46  
Well, you wondered if you could get up at? Oh, dark 30 in the morning. Yeah, right. Wondering, and you wondered where the heck those stars were. I mean, they weren't right outside for you. So you wondered where you could find them. And you went and found them? And then wandered in? Aw, well, how do you feel now? I mean, you had this experience a lot. It's been seven or eight hours. So you look like you're still beaming even though you're still dressed a little?

Joe Luther  11:09  
I am, you know, I was a little I was a little buzzed at It boasts by it at first because I thought I was experiencing this, you know, once in 20 year experience. And interestingly, as I thought it through, I'm like, it's an always experience, I guess. You know, what was interesting, though, is when I thought it that way? Hmm. Because this really maybe not that special. But yeah, it is it is special, because it's a portal to open our mind.

Vince Kern  11:36  
Oh, you got it. That's that is that is wonderfully put,

Joe Luther  11:40  
just like the Eclipse and sometimes, you know, they're the other eclipses that aren't as impressive.

Vince Kern  11:44  
I remember one time when I learned that we spin around and that spin around the sun that we travel around the Sun at 17.3 miles per second or so. And so like every now and then I'll stop and go whoa, would that be and I counted off? Yeah. And it's like, whoa, wait a minute. And that's just such a small thing relative to everything else. Right.

Joe Luther  12:04  
It is, it is a sense of wonderment when you really, you know, stop. You know, stop being consumed by your bubble. Yeah. You know, I think that's why you and I both love that Elton John song Mona Lisa is and man Oh, yeah. It's just like, you know, amazing. Let's

Vince Kern  12:25  
go kind of makes you also to realize that no matter what you're going through, you're part of something that's really pretty darn cool.

Joe Luther  12:33  
Pretty special. And don't forget it. Yep.

Vince Kern  12:37  
That's a heck of a lot of wonderment this this morning. And I'm glad you answered my wonderment about what? Yeah, you're looking so casual today. And

Joe Luther  12:46  
hey, I didn't feel like anything else was important. Apparently not.

Vince Kern  12:50  
Well, it's important that we were able to share this today. And hopefully some of our listeners have a little refreshed vibe from that energy that you got from that planetary alignment.

Joe Luther  13:04  
Yeah. But that's the kind of thing that I like to talk about from time to time, and I know you do as well. Well, I

Vince Kern  13:09  
think that's kind of the nature of this whole podcast, if

Joe Luther  13:13  
you will, our podcast journey as we journey through this universe. And thanks for being with

Vince Kern  13:17  
us today. And we'll have another one for you soon. If you like that wonder, join us for more at friends in wonder.com