Chinese New Year

by Tamara Sykes
January 20, 2012
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Right now the 'old moon' is waning to new, silvering to a thin crescent that will be visible this Saturday morning an hour before dawn in the east.  We won’t see the new moon’s slender arc again (waxing toward full) until just after sunset on Tuesday the 24^th where it will reappear low in the west with the ‘Evening Star’ Venus lighting just above.

For moongazers, then, the typical new moon tends to be a non-event.  But this particular new moon will be celebrated by a large number of the world’s inhabitants, since it marks the start of the Chinese New Year.  The Year of the Dragon.

Beginning the year at the new moon makes a lot of sense.  It’s that cyclical moment when the slate has been wiped clean and possibilities abound.  In contrast, our January 1st New Year seems disturbingly free from nature’s cycles.  The activities that surround new year festivities in Chinese-speaking cultures are laden with millennia of tradition; in comparison, Westerners have the Times Square Ball, “Auld Lang Syne,” college bowl games, and red beans and rice (or variations thereof).  To me, these have never seemed compelling enough to trigger the sense that a new cycle has begun.

Unfortunately, while the human race began marking time by the phases of the moon, relying on lunar calendars fails to capture the full experience of time on planet Earth.  For one, lunar calendars conflict with the solar ingresses – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Fall would fall on shifting dates that had little to do with the Sun’s position.  Thus, not too useful.  And lunar calendars also interfere with the all-too-human desire to have specific dates set aside for celebrations.  We can still see how the remnants of the lunar calendar affects the day Easter is observed, since Easter is celebrated on the Sunday following the first Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox.  Most calendars today are lunisolar calendars, of course; the Islamic calendar being the sole exception. 

Since it's my philosophy that there are never enough reasons to celebrate,  I advocate using both solar and lunar calendars.  You might use this quiet time before Monday’s new moon to set your own intentions – for the month or the year – and see what comes to fruition in the Year of the Dragon.  

Some Thoughts on Orion

by Tamara Sykes
January 11, 2012
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Even if one has little expertise in navigating the night sky, the belt of Orion, the Hunter, is unmistakable.  In mid-northern latitudes throughout January and into February, the three stars that compose it – Mintaka, Anilam, and Alnitak –  rise together east as night falls, a string of diamonds, the closest the stars come to a perfect line.  Two brighter stars – Betelgeuse and Bellatrix – stand over them at an angle, as if demarcating the top of a letter 'K,' or the wing tips of a great stellar butterfly.   These are Orion's shoulders, while another bright star, Rigel - the sixth brightest star in the night sky - forms his left foot.  A clear night will let you discern the club he's wielding and the shield that proceeds him.  The outline is so definitive that one would conclude that these stars must be part of some constellation.

Beautiful Bellatrix - temporarily besmirched because of the Harry Potter books - rides the left shoulder of the giant 

In fact, the constellation of Orion has been integral to the cultural histories of many civilizations.  As people began to trade stories about the stars in the skies, sometime between 4000 and 2000 B.C., Orion's stars rose with the sun when the Spring equinox began.  For the Sumerians, cultivating their fields in Mesopotamia, this was when crops could be planted.  One way this information was related from generation to generation was through the Sumerian stories about Gilgamesh.  Among his many feats, Gilgamesh defeated the bull that Ishtar's father Anu had sent to terrorize Uruk.  After planting a dagger in the animal's heart, he dismembered it.  His companion Enkidu threw the pieces into heaven where they remain today, in the form of Taurus, the Bull.  For the Sumerians, the three stars that we identify as Orion's belt formed a dagger aimed at Taurus – a sight they would have seen setting in the western sky in the weeks before Spring commenced.  

In India, Betelgeuse, the red supergiant that forms Orion's right shoulder, marked the sixth lunar station, Andra, or Humid One, since the rising of this star coincided with the beginning of the rainy season.  Egyptians recognized the importance of Orion's station by assigning the soul of Osiris, god of the afterlife and husband of Isis, to reside there.  Isis's soul rests in Sirius – night's brightest star, which dogs Orion's heel to the southeast – whose solar rising heralded the start of the Nile's flooding, the culture's most fecund period.  

An earlier blog posted on this website recounts one of the many myths about Orion.  (See D'Aulaires' Greek Myths)  Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, recounts Orion's rather unusual origin.  Keep in mind that the Greeks and Romans had some zany stories about the conception and birth of the gods.  Artemis, the goddess of wisdom, sprang fully grown from Zeus' skull; he'd swallowed her mother, who'd been turned into a fly.  And the story of how Aphrodite was conceived . . .  not a G-rated one.  In Orion's case, the gods Jupiter, Mercury, and Neptune were offered hospitality by a poor shepherd, who, not knowing their identities, nevertheless, sacrificed the only animal he had, an ox.  Impressed, the gods asked the shepherd what he wanted most in the world.  When he answered a son, the three gods urinated on the skin of the ox and told the shepherd to bury it.  A few months later, Urion – later, Orion – was born.  Again, there's that the connection between the bull – Taurus – and Orion.  As if to strengthen this connection, the Greeks called a collection of stars just above and slightly to the west of Orion, tucked into the constellation Taurus, the Hyades.  These were often called the "Rain Nymphs,"  since their setting in the west at dawn coincided with rainy season in November, and their name derives from the Greek word "to rain."  Take some water and a bull's hide and up springs Orion!

An illustration from Hevelius, Uranographia (1690)

Every year for millennia, civilizations watched for the rising and setting of Orion.  If the previous year's growing season had been disastrous, by watching for the right signs, they believed there would be a better harvest ahead.  Life's balance for us today might feel as if it hangs less from the returning cycles of heaven and earth, but whenever we look for them, they are there for us, supporting us - in the budding plants, the nourishing rains, the growing light, the reign of those majestic stars.  Watch for Orion traveling the winter skies as you head home from work this next month.  He will be especially easy to spot from February 1st through the 4th as a waxing gibbous moon sails just above, moving from Taurus into Gemini.  

When Cupid Struck: this week's contest

by Van Wymelenberg
January 13, 2012
3 comments

Valentine's Day approaches.  This presents a rare opportunity to be completely cheesy without too much embarrassment.

Organize your thoughts around a great love quote, or better yet, your own love story, and imagine how you'd create a night sky print to celebrate that moment or idea.  Let us know in a few sentences, or a short paragraph.  What moment would you show?  The night you met?  The night you fell in love?  The night you got engaged?  The night you married?  Tell us your story.

We'll choose at random from all the best entries and create that print... for you to present your beloved on Valentine's Day next... about a month from today.  Good luck!  Comment/Enter at our blog, at our Facebook post or wall, or send me a short email:  van@indigonight.com  

Van

Extra Extra This Just In

by Van Wymelenberg
January 12, 2012
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 So, I had this thought that I'd sift through all the entries for our weekly framed print give-a-way... that we'd talk about it in the office, may-be track down some of the the books that were quoted from (if it was, indeed, a quote from a book) and... a clear favorite would emerge.

Wrong.  Pretty much each and every entry – through our Facebook site, commenting at the blog, or through email – was somehow sweet and perfect.  These was no way to choose at all.  We ended up putting them all in the proverbial cigar box and drawing a name at random.

A lot of you like Margaret Wise Brown, especially Good Night Moon.  I tracked down some commentary on the site GoodReads  and was much amazed at the diversity of opinion.  (How could anyone not like this book?) I think people are bringing way to much analysis to this simple story.  To whit:

"Although the end is itself anticlimactic, the book throughout alternates between a Jeffersonian systematic formulation of an intuitively quixotic plot and a reductive encapsulation of the bed-time ritual that is practically, in its essence, Elizabethan. A revisionist reading unearths the Orwellian presence of the hushing lady, which is countermanded by the ideological shift introduced to the reader by the omnipresent burgeois mouse." comments MJ.

Then again, perhaps this is all with a wink and a nod.  Heck, I just like it because it's kind of fun to read out loud.

I didn't realize that Wise Brown wrote another favorite of mine, The Sailor Dog until I followed up on her biography.

I'm Scuppers the Sailor Dog / I can sail in a gail / right over a whale / under full sail / in a fog.

I'm Scuppers the Sailor Dog / With a shake and a snort / I can sail into port / under full sail / in a fog.

In any event, this weeks winner is Chantra King.  She quoted from 'Guess How Much I Love You,' a British children's book by Sam McBratney with illustrations by Anita Jerim.  (This was a favorite of several of you...) Chantra relates that she and her mother still quote it to each other... I'm thinking this might be a nice Mother's Day print.  Chantra, give a call and we'll move this along!

Details on next week's contest follow tomorrow!

Van

Recent Work: The evolution of Las Vegas

by Van Wymelenberg
January 10, 2012
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The beautiful Lake Mead Reservoir, on the Colorado River, about 30 mile southeast of Vegas.

We've recently agreed to work with The Las Vegas Wedding Company.  We're excited about this new partnership – they've gotten the endorsement of many respected venues and forums that have also given us a kind word over the years: The Knot, Martha Stewart Weddings, The Wedding Wire, and Project Weddings, just to name a few.  They've also been named one of the top ten wedding destination companies five years running by The Wedding Show.  

They organize and manage outdoor weddings in the Vegas area.  Locations include the majestic Valley of Fire, Lake Mead, the West Rim of the Grand Canyon and others.  We'll be providing night sky prints as a 'thank you' from Toni and Mike, the principals, to their clients.  To that end our remarkable and wonderfully talented digital artist Chris Mendola developed a small group of iconic Vegas horizons that share a common look and feel.  We'll continue development of these Nevada desert images... suggestion are welcome.  Encouraged even!  These are now in our online catalog, and available to all.  

Here is our Grand Canyon shot.  This is the wedding site on the West Rim, at the river.

This is the Valley of Fire.  Not to be confused with the Valley of the Moon.

Our classic Vegas horizon, a super detailed look at the recent skyline.