when months become knuckles and planets become moth wings...

the above image is another gem from todd's new astronomy. this time a little trick to help remember which months have 30 or 31 days. todd says that the old "thirty days hath september..." is time worn (and this was in 1897...!)

the easier method, he claimed, is pictured above, whereby one begins at the top of the hand and moves along the knuckles and depressions between them, starting with january. in the end, the knuckles represent the longer months, and the depressions, the shorter ones.

todd goes on to say that dividing the year into 13 months would be much better than the 12 month calendar because the months would have an equal number of days... unfortunately he doesn't mention what the 13th month might be named...nor how to decide what to do with the extra day on leap year...

this second batch of images are also from todd's new astronomy. these, from my absolute favorite of the few gorgeous color plates, are images of mars as seen during different seasons. the ink or watercolor images remind me of making drawings by blowing air through a straw onto wet ink blobs when i was a kid.

the ink blown blues hover between pure abstraction and reminding me a lot of moth's wings... moving again back to childhood memories, this time to the powder marks left on the fingertips when touching them... and if one is willing to dive deeper, one can allow these wonderfully random connective tissues to begin to connect todd's new astronomy, with one of the greatest unions of moths and abstraction ever made...mothlight