A Very Peaceful, Nature-Filled, Astronomical Look At 2017

Look to the sky to find peace and beauty. A 2017 shot of
northern lights and the big dipper viewed
from Alberta, Canada.

Like most of us, I'm still trying to recover from a chaotic, angry, scary, mean, corrupt, despicable 2017.  

Plus, I'm afraid 2018 isn't looking much better.

Which means we need to look at the bright side. The peaceful side. Nature usually helps.

Nature gets an assist here from Adrien Manduit, who gives us some of his best and favorite time lapses from 2017. You can watch and breathe easy and relax with his video at the bottom of this post.

Most of the images in this video were shot in Iceland, Malawi and Canada. The time lapses go heavy on mesmerizing views of northern lights and intense views of skies filled with millions of stars.

The video closes with this message: "All you have to do is look up."

I guess that will be my talisman going forward. Whenever the world gets to be too much, when people and leaders and the news get to be too much, all I have to do is look up. I already do this, given my fascination with cloud photography.

I guess I was on to something. Manduit proved it. And you should try his recipe. If only to stay sane.

This video proved surprisingly moving for me. I hope it does for you. (H/T BoingBoing)

Just Because We Need It: Dog Gets Great Gift, Everyone Happy

Cash, left, meets his new, young best buddy Jennings
at Christmas, making everyone happy 

It's been a trying 2017 to say the least, so the last post of this year, or at least something close to the last post, should go like this one. Just ot make us feel better.

In Ortonville, Michigan, Cash, a 12-year-old Golden Retriever, also had a bad 2017. His best friend, a fellow dog in the household named Rosie, passed away.

Cash mourned. He was getting older and this was too much. He lost all his energy after Rosie's death, and pretty much slept close to 23 hours a day.

That is until Christmas. Cash's human companion, Marie Ahonen, decided Cash needed a new companion to get him back to his old self.

It was a Christmas present: "It'll be our Christmas present to our family - that was our first thought. Then it just kind of piqued in my mind that this will be Cash's present," Ahonen said.

The idea worked. "(Cash) just got so excited and his paws were going a million miles an hour and I'm so excited, like this is what he needed," Ahonen said.

The gift for Cash was a Golden Retriever puppy. In the video,  Marie's husband, Jay, brings in a box and Cash immediately knows something cool is inside. Cash opens the box, and there's the puppy.

Cash immediately came back to life. The puppy looks confused at first, but then at the end decides he's game.

The puppy's name is Jennings (named after Waylon) At last report. Cash and Jennings were gettin along famously, and Cash was indeed back to his old, pre-2017 self

Let's hope the same for the rest of us.

Here's the fun, cute video: