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| Beginning this morning five planets align in the pre-dawn sky. |
A
lot of star gazers are excited by a relatively rare display that will be
put on by our Solar System neighbors in
the dark pre-dawn sky.
Beginning this morning
and continuing through the first
week of February the five brightest planets will roughly line up in the night sky diagonally from the highest, Jupiter down to the smallest, Mercury, just above the horizon.
In between in descending order
will be Mars, Saturn, and the
brightest of them all “morning star”
Venus. It will take a sharp eye, cloudless skies, and a horizon
clear of obstructions to spot Mercury, which will rise late in the east after
the other planets have arranged themselves and after a few minutes will be
obscured by the pre-glow of the dawn.
But with luck and persistence, early risers can catch all five in
the sky at once with the naked eye.
To
add to the interest the wandering and waning Moon will seem to play
tag amid the planets, shifting position
night by night until on February 6, a sliver
of a crescent moon will pair with
brilliant Venus and Mercury low in the southeast
at just at dawn.
This
is the first time since 2005 that the planets have thus aligned and it will not
happen again until July of 2020.
Of
course a lot of people, probably most, won’t ever see what the excitement is all about. After all during those early hours hovering after 5 am, most folks are
still snug in their beds or groggily pouring the first cup of coffee. Even if they were inclined to step outside,
odds are against getting a good view. Cloud cover is more common this time of year than clear skies, except on the coldest of nights. Winter
storms are frequent. This morning
and for the rest of this weekend, for instance, the American East Coast is being buried
in an epic Nor’easter which will
prevent viewing.
More
critically, most people now live in urban
and suburban setting where light pollution all but obscures celestial bodies even on the clearest
nights. Most people only spy the Moon and a planet or two when
they are highest in the sky. Many have given up entirely and live their lives as if under a tent.
But
it was not always so. In the days of our
earliest ancestors, the night sky
was much clearer. It is estimated that 1000 times more stars were visible then than in the most remote modern skies. They Milky
Way was not just a candy bar and
rumor, but a dazzling, awe inspiring display.
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| The Milky Way can now best be seen from remote and shrinking wilderness. |
Early
humans, having not much else to do
after the sun set, spent hours staring
at those skies. They noted first the cycles of the Moon and the seasonal procession of fixed stars across the roof of the world. They also took note of a handful of bright
stars which outshone all of the rest
and meandered in mysterious ways in the heavens.
And they took note of transitory
things—stars that seemed to fall out
of the sky and disappear in a trice, sometimes swarms of them. And once in
a while a great light with a glowing tail would take days, weeks, or
months to cross the sky. They took all
of these things as omens and
pondered what these great events meant
in their own lives.
Eventually
they found they could regulate their
lives—predict the comings and goings of game herds, times to plant and
reap. And perhaps divine propitious times to take a
mate, wage war, elevate a chieftain, or make appropriate sacrifice to the mysterious powers that seemed to rule the world.
Almost
as soon as civilizations arose
around the world, as soon as temples
were raised, and some way to record
ideas in chiseled stone, or in clay tablets, humans were recording the
doings of the sky and finding ways
to predict, often with stunning accuracy how the sky would
look and behave far into the future. Stories were invented to explain the stars and heavens. Often they became gods made visible on earth.
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| The ancients built monuments to align with the stars and saw their gods in the heavens. |
Over
the last two centuries or so, many peoples have lost that ancient connection.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. If we are curious at all, we can open
books or tune in dazzling television
programs that will explain in detail all about the stars, the Moon, the
planets, the Solar System, and the Cosmos
itself. We are told it is all infinite yet had a beginning and in trillions upon
trillions of years it will all
come to an end. Some of us may dream of traveling among the
stars. Others are so overwhelmed with loneliness in the vastness
that they scurry back in terror to comforting fairy tales.
And
many, so very many, just shrug their shoulders
and go about the mundane business of
putting one foot in front of another
in a slog through brief existence.
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| The stars blazed fiercely for Van Gogh |
Suddenly the Stars
Suddenly the stars
unseen since god knows
when—
explode against the Arctic
night.
No blank shelf of stratus bars them,
no haze or mist obscures
them,
no scudding cirrus race the
wind to hide them.
The fierce orange glow of pollution
cannot obscure them.
Thus old Orion does his somersault
across the heavens,
ursine dippers pivot, reel
upon bright Polaris’s
steady blaze,
forgotten constellations
process
with timeless dignity,
long –lost Milky Way
splatters half across the sky.
Once folk knew these stars,
measured life blood by
their glow,
fixed on them for certainly
against death and chaos,
steered by their light
where no marking showed he way,
found their gods among
them,
and sacrificed to them
in sacred duty.
But years have passed,
these stars unseen,
unrecognized,
nor even missed
amid a world of roofs,
electric lights,
other things to do, other
lives to lead—
until this night,
when they come a
calling
and change
everything.
—Patrick Murfin
This poem appeared in a slightly different form in We Build Temples in the Heart published
in 2004 by Skinner House Books of Boston.
Autographed copies are
available upon request for $8 including postage. Post a request in the comments
or E-mail pmurfin@sbcglobal.net
with your request and a mail address. I
will send a volume winging toward you and let you know where you can send a
check.
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