Last night, I thought I saw a path through the stars.
Last week’s frenetic pace gave way to a weekend filled with catch-up duties, and by yesterday evening, we were ready for sleep early. After turning out the last light, I stood at the window for a few moments, looking at the night sky. And as my eyes adjusted, I saw new patterns in the stars that cloudy night skies had obscured for so long — looking north, a wide and open path between two scattered groups of celestial shimmer.
It reminded me just how rare it was for me actually to focus on the night skies at this time of year: partly because it’s still too cold to spend time out of doors past daylight; partly because this time of year is always fraught, and I am always exhausted until the respite of summer arrives; and partly, in recent years, because climate collapse has altered our patterns so significantly that there are now more often nighttime clouds than not.
But recent days have proven an exception to these changes, and it has been a gift to be able to see new shapes and spirits in the darkened skies from distinctly vernal vantage point.
A few hours later, I awakened, and looked out the window once more. The dark had deepened, the air’s clarity sharpened, and suddenly those same paths were no longer visible to me; instead, a scattering of silver stardust covered the earlier gaps, more distant stars in deeper space now showing themselves through air like clearest glass. I was surprised at the twinned pangs I felt: one, for the beauty of the beadwork of the night; the other, a small sense of loss, now that those darkened skyroads seemed no longer open to me. And I would awaken once more before the dawn . . . to find that the clouds had at last moved in, obscuring completely every source of light in the sky.
It wold clear before sunrise, of course — mostly. Dawn broke this day from behind a broad arc of gold, turned amber, then coral, a shelf of lenticular clouds stretching behind the ridgeline, from northwest of El Salto to Pueblo Peak, bands backlit by the shades of the rising sun. That, too, was a beautiful sight, if normally a bit unseasonal; such brilliant moments at dawn are usually the province here of fall.
But as with all else, all bets are off now when it comes to the world around us.
The subject of this week’s Monday Photo Meditation serves as a stark reminder of how much has changed, purely by virtue of the age of the image. It’s one that Wings shot on film more than a quarter of a century ago: the comet known to the colonial world as”Hale-Bopp,” although our cultures typically hold other names for such occurrences, names that predate the appropriation of colonial credit for their so-called “discovery.” Wings has spent his life as a sky watcher, beginning in his youngest years; to this day, he still has a telescope, although it sees less use now, courtesy of our busy schedules. And while, as I said yesterday, I had originally planned to make spring greens one of the themes of this week, it seemed somehow important to highlight his newest works, which revolve around the imagery of the stars. Add to that our unusually active skies this season, it seems even more fitting to focus our attention upward now.
There are no visible comets now that I know of, although there is a comet passing by the earth even as I write; it’s simply out of our line of sight, even in the darkest hours of the night. There are meteor showers ongoing, too: the Lyrids, currently active and expected to peak in the next week, although we have seen none of them from this vantage point, either. What has been different this month, if similarly lacking in obvious visibility thus far, is the unusual number of eclipses — another powerful celestial event that, in our ways, is best acknowledged with humility and respect.
It’s an active sky these days, perhaps yet one more attenuated effect of our collapsing climate. And it’s a reminder that we need to find a new way forward — a new path for the earth, and for humanity, for the current is far too destructive to last much longer. Perhaps we could do worse than to look to the path of the stars for guidance on creating a better, longer lasting, more harmonious way to travel beneath their light.
~ Aji
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