Since time immemorial, cultures the world over have fixed on the North Star as a celestial compass, a fixed point by which to get their bearings, an eternal navigational aid.
But some stars travel with us on our journey — more, they are out front, riding point, scouting uncharted territory, blazing a trail with silver stardust to light the way.
Yesterday’s featured piece highlighted similar motifs: the idea of spirits who travel among the stars. Today, I want to look at a very real sort of astral travel by way of Wings’s photos from many years ago.
On July 23, 1995, two observers in this part of the world, Alan Hale here in New Mexico and Thomas Bopp in Arizona, “discovered” what would become known as the Hale-Bopp Comet. “Discovered,’ of course, is the wrong word; like the rest of the world, indigenous cultures all over Indian Country have skywatchers, professional and amateur alike, and I have no doubt that many, many people saw the comet before the two white men whose names are now borne by it. But indigenous knowledge does not get credited with “discovery” — indeed, it seems that no matter how long our peoples have known or done or used something, even for millennia upon millennia, that thing doesn’t exist until someone from a colonial background happens to notice it.
Wings is one of those amateur skywatchers. He’s spent his life observing the skies, and he knows both his own people’s names and those of the dominant culture for the various bodies in the sky, and can locate them without having to think about it. As a boy, he and his brother spent the warm months working this land on which we now live, and they slept beneath the stars at night, the constellations forming the bedroom ceiling of their “summer home.” For years, he’s owned a telescope, and periodically, on some of the brilliantly clear nights this place offers, brings it out to look at the sky spirits as they travel the Milky Way and beyond.
So it’s no surprise that the appearance of what became known as the Hale-Bopp Comet should make an attractive photographic subject for him. Alas, as far as we know, only this photo remains; a print of it is in the possession of one of our dearest friends. But what a photo it is.
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned the deep indigo of our high-desert skies at twilight. This is what I meant. This was an old film photo, not digital, and it is untouched by any editing (save resizing for display here on the site). Those are the actual colors of the Pueblo sky, with one of our many encircling mountain ranges visible in the background. The sky, an intensely-hued watercolor wash ranging from midnight to deep rose at the horizon, is so sharply clear that stars are visible in the image. But the focal point is that fiery ball of stardust and its trailing tail, blazing its own steady path across the heavens.
It’s also no surprise that cultures the world over have always regarded comets as omens, as harbingers, as guides. Sometimes they are interpreted as warnings, whether cautionary or as signs of impending doom; for others, they are simply signs of the presence of great power. Both views, of course, can be corrupted, taken to dangerously toxic extremes, as happened with Heaven’s Gate cult, in which 39 cult members committed suicide in an attempt to unite themselves with the spaceship they imagined to be trailing in the comet’s wake.
Our view is that it’s a sign of great elemental power, and like all power, it must be approached and handled with the utmost respect. Treated carelessly or arrogantly, and it becomes something poisonous, potentially deadly. Handled humbly and respectfully, it’s a thing of preternatural beauty and blessings.
And occasionally, it illuminates a path for those of us fortunate enough to be permitted a view of it.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
