Nature's Shadow Puppet

Remember when you first learned to make animal shadows by shaping your hands on front of a light?  I wasn't very good at it, so a rabbit and a dog were about all I could do.  My favorite practice time was during church.  When I was kneeling and trying to look reverent, I was actually making shadow animals on the pew in front of me.

In nearby Jackson County, Nature makes her own shadow puppet for a brief time every fall.  On clear evenings, from mid-October through early November there is a remarkable shadow across the mountains between 5:30 and 6:00.  As the sun is creeping across Whiteside Mountain (here) near Cashiers it casts an amazing shadow on the nearby mountains.  Called the "Shadow of the Bear," the form looks just like a bear ready to go into hibernation.  I have never driven over to see the shadow in person, but I am totally awed by the photographs.

This photograph from the Transylvania Times - Jerry Jaynes

This photograph from the Asheville Citizen-Times

What an amazing sight.  We've often driven by this very site but never at the right time to see the shadow.  Someone asked if I thought the mountaintop would look like a bear if viewed from the shadow itself.  I suspect the mountaintop would no more resemble a bear than my hands would resemble the rabbits I made in church.  And that's what adds to the magic.