The Transit of Venus

My family and I stood looking up from the street. To our left was a lunch cart, which had once been used to feed factory works sandwiches and pickles when they were given time to grab lunch. Blue and wood and glass. From inside a Greenfield Village employee hands out brightly colored bottles of Faygo pop to the visitor. Directly in front of us, below the spectacle we are gazing up at, is an old fashion candy shop, rows of glass jars with flavored sugar pops and wrapped sticky chews. In five minutes, this place would have our attention, but not now.

On the upper face of this tall brick building was an alcove, with figures hidden in the shadows and a bell that protruded just into the light of the sun. If you looked you could also see other, smaller bells on either side and more figures flanking them. Above this still display, the round white clock hovered very close to noon. Our anticipation hung on the hand of that clock.

Then the magic of the clock maker was revealed. The hand lurched, the still figures in the alcove stepped from their shadows and they used the hammers, crafted into their hands to play music. The dance of color and sound drew us into the celebration of the hour. A figure of gold played on the right, a red, white and blue knight swung in the center, fully showing us his face then back with each strike and this was nearly mirrored on the other side. After twelve heavy strikes, the choreographed movements ended where they began, and I breathed again.

I love seeing the workings of a clock. Not just the bird that on time springs from a little door, or the dance of animatronic statues, but the weights and springs and interlocking gears. That piece of glass they put on some watches, that lets you peak into the movement is more beautiful than the gold of the band. The ancient pennies added and removed from a pendulum within Big Ben, to adjust fractions of second from the timing, are some of my most favorite currency in the world. These things allow you to marvel at the genius of the craftsman, to imagine a man whose collection of genius and patience and meticulous work are almost unimaginable. I watch ticks, the gears that move too fast to see beside those which don't seem to move at all and I thinking to myself. How does that work? How do you time that? Could I, at my best, make something like that?

I can't imagine someone looking at the clockwork and refusing to recognize the genius of the maker. I see a brilliant Geppetto, red apron and glasses, through which he sees golden gears held in fine tools and I am stopped with contemplation.

At sunset tonight, as the sun is spraying pinks across the sky, the planet Venus will cross between earth and the sun. It will look like a simple black dot, but it is so much more than that. With multiple viewing locations and a little trigonometry it can give you precise distance between the earth and Venus and the sun and the diameter of Venus. With some more advanced tools, there are new temperature readings we can get and potential extra planet discoveries. There are even more things that are planned to take place at this rare moment when we can see the precision and craftsmanship of the universe. The next transit will be in 2117.

As I consider how I might get a glimpse at this moment, I can't help but feel like I'm standing on the street looking up to see the clockmakers magic.