Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face.

by Van Wymelenberg
April 16, 2012
13 comments

We are working on variation of our night sky print --  a framed 8 x 10 version with an 'easel' back so it can be placed on a table or desk. 

The moon and stars are such a beautiful context for saying things that need to be said, important things, for example... to a new child  ('Welcome to the spinning world!) or a new love (Unforgettable, that's what you are...) or to your dear Mom on Mother's Day (You are the best.)

What would you say?  One friend of ours had us do a night sky print for her mom with the message 'I love you to the moon and back!'  It's something they still say to one another, mother and daughter, a favorite line from a favorite read-aloud book from childhood.  She decided to show the sky on the night her Mom was born.  Very cool.

Another has recently placed an order for a new Mom, showing the birth sky of her new daughter.  It simply had the child's name.  She had us enclose a very thoughtful gift card, too, a quote, "The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.  She never existed before.  The woman existed, but the mother, never.  A mother is something absolutely new."  ~Rajneesh

Let us know what you would say to your mom in a follow-up comment below, or on our Facebook page, (or by email if you're shy or your Mom follows you on Facebook, ha!) and we just might send along one of our new 8 x 10 desktop prints.

We have five (5) to give away over the next two weeks.  This could easily be you (and your Mom), please share you thoughts!

By the way, the headline is a quote from George Eliot, the victorian playwright — I believe it's the opening line to her biography.

What You Can Do on the Vernal Equinox

by Tamara Sykes
March 19, 2012
1 comments

Within the next 12 hours, the vernal -- or spring -- equinox arrives.  In the Northern Hemisphere, this means spring begins, while folks in the Southern Hemisphere start their autumn.

Human beings and the natural world have their own ways of celebrating spring's arrival.  As sure as the redbuds will burst into bloom and birds wake us earlier each morning with their songs, people begin tilling their gardens and unpacking their warm-weather clothes.  But while the days are certain to get longer and warmer, the equinox is not primarily an earth-bound event, but rather a celestial one.  What this means is that at on Tuesday, March 20 at 5:14 UTC (1:14 am Eastern Daylight Savings Time) the Sun will be passing over a hypothetical point in the sky called the celestial equator.  In the Northern Hemisphere the Sun appears to be heading north of that line; in the South, it's moving south.  From now until the Summer Solstice, the Earth's Northern Hemisphere will tilt toward the Sun while the Southern Hemisphere will be inclined away.

The waning crescent this morning, the 19th.  It was a beautiful morning, light rain, the smell of skunk and fresh loam.

The moon kept flitting in and out of the cloud cover. It should be visible tomorrow morning as well, just before dawn.

Without the convenience of the internet, there would have been at least one employee of Indigo Night (full disclosure -- me) persisting in the belief that it is only on the vernal and autumnal equinox that one can balance an egg and easily ascend into a yogic headstand.  While there's nothing wrong with doing some inversions of eggs or bodies, this is not what makes the equinox different from any other day of the year.  The one thing you can discern on the day of the equinox -- spring or fall -- is the direction of due east or due west.  Note where the Sun rises tomorrow morning and where it sets, and you will have the correct orientation.  If you have an unobstructed view of the eastern horizon you might be fortunate enough to see a slender crescent moon as well, waning toward the new moon on the 22nd.  Watch for the moon to begin waxing in the west by the 24th, popping up once again to highlight the separating Jupiter-Venus conjunction. 

Dancing with the stars

by Tamara Sykes
February 14, 2012
0 comments

Starwatching in the winter isn't for the lighthearted.  Toasty inside our cars, we might catch a glimpse of the waxing moon as we drive home or hurry into the shops, but only the most committed are going to bundle up for a meteor shower scheduled to peak before dawn.

Luckily, the best pagaent the sky offers this winter is easy to spot and on display for a lot longer than a few hours.  You may have already noticed two lights so bright in the west that they're shining even before the daylight has drained away.  Jupiter and Venus have been gracing our skies since November, but now they're growing closer, getting ready for their spectacular dance next month.

Of the two, Venus – here the 'Evening Star' – is the brightest.  One reason is because Venus passes closest to the Earth, as close as 23 million miles.  While a much larger planet  – 11.8 times larger than Venus – Jupiter is more than 400 million miles away.  A second reason is the reflectivity of its atmosphere – a dense miasma of greenhouse gases – that reflect about 70% of all sunlight.  Venus is currently the westernmost planet, traveling with the stars of Pisces, while Jupiter lights above in Aries.  But over the course of the next month we will see their positions change.  Between March 13 and 15, the two will be as close as a degree apart -- a beautiful pairing that will show for upwards of three hours after sunset.  Following their pas de deux, Venus will leave the floor first, climbing toward the stars of Taurus, while Jupiter dawdles in Aries, dropping lower toward the horizon.

Viewing west as night falls.  Each night the waxing crescent moon will be a little brighter and higher in the sky.

Use the waxing crescent moon at the end of February to track the approaching Venus-Jupiter conjunction.  On 2/24, the slender moon will be sneaking up to Venus; on 2/25, the moon will stand next to her; and on 2/26, the moon will move on to pass over Jupiter.  Keep your eyes to the west between 2/28 and 3/7 and you may also make out elusive Mercury, as high as 7º above the horizon, the best evening view for Mercury all year long.

By the end of April Jupiter will make its exit from the night sky, and Venus will follow by the end of May (popping up as a shadow across the Sun in June -- but that's another story).  As the days grow longer in the Northern Hemisphere and the Earth stands poised to burst into bloom, let these dazzling lights remind you in the nights ahead of the beauty that's here for us all.

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
0 comments

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.