Twenty-first Century Cosmic Navigators (1): Awareness Of Nature

It’s always good to look think about or spirituality, or liturgy, or ritual, as a later Celt or Druid etc, but it’s good to see ourselves as a twenty-first century cosmic‘ navigator’, and aware of nature, of the Source for All. And that’s what I’d like to do now – ie how we can use our hands and fingers and how we can use the sun, the moon, and the sky stars, and be aware of nature around us ie air temperature to insects etc.

So, here’s three ways, that roughly, we can be a ‘twenty-first cosmic navigator’ using:

• sun ‘minute-fingers’
• air temperature crickets (insects)
• astronomical ‘fingers’

SUN ‘MINUTE-FINGERS’: Here is a way to find out how your fingers can give you how many minutes are left before sunset. Just for fun.

So, bring together your four fingers, as in the photo above, and keep your arm as long as you can.

Now, turn your fingers, together, at 90degrees, and then you count how many fingers are different between the sun’s horizon and end of the sun. If there’s one breadth finger between the horizon and the sun then it’s 15 minutes before sundown. Two fingers breadth will show 30 minutes before the sun’s dawn, and each extra finger adds 15 minutes – although it will probably only work better, time wise, with only one to four fingers to work.

AIR TEMPERATURE CRICKETS (INSECTS): Here is a way, when you have insect crickets in your part of your land, you can find out air temperate in Celsius. 

So, firstly, you count how many one cricket (male ones) chirps in twenty-five seconds. 

Then, secondly, count the total chirps and then divide the number by three.

And then, thirdly, you add the number four. 

And, that’s how you find out the temperature in Celsius. 

For Instance, if within 25 seconds one cricket chirps for 57chips, you divide 57 by three. So it’s 19. And, then you add the number 3. So, it is 57/3 + 3 = Celsius temperature is 22c. The number the chirps, the greater the higher Celsius.

This is called as Dolbear’s Law, known after Amos Dolbear who published it in 1987. However, Margarette W Brook reported it in 1881, but it went unnoticed until after Dolbear’s publication.

ASTRONOMICAL ‘FINGERS’: Here is a way to show how your fingers make into degrees to stars, planets, comets etc. So, similar to the photo above, bring together your four fingers, and keep your arm as long as you can.

So, hold your fingers to the star in the sky. One (breadth of the) finger shows your showing 1 degree. Two breadth of the fingers means 3 degree are applied, three fingers means 5 degree, four fingers mean 7 degree are shown, and use all four fingers and a thumb close to your finger means you show 10 degrees of the star’s sky

If, for instance a planet, say, Mars is said to be 3 degrees from the moon today, then you can check the moon from away a number of fingers. One finger would show it is from one degree from the moon, but two breadth fingers would show 3 degrees of you away where Mars is from.

Or, you might know a planet or comet etc how many degrees (fingers) it is from certain to a star or constellation.

You might like to try your fingers for the degrees for part of the constellation Orion. Do see that constellation just above here. In the two bright stars are the stars Betelgeuse and Bellatrix – see the two large stars in the photo above here. They are Orion’s shoulder’s. Both stars nicely fit four (breadth) fingers, and are shown by about 7 degrees from others. Here, you can use the night sky, your fingers, and use a sky map on other ways, and become a stellar cartographer! Roughly.

AND THERE MORE. WILDLIFE NAVIGATOR? Over the next few weeks I’d like to do a few articles called ‘the twenty first comic navigator’. Then, we can encourage ecology outside in the forest, and into our towns and cities, too, and in fun ways, too.

A New Moon Teaches…: Ephemera: New Moon: 7 December 2018

To the Ancients, Celts, Druids, early Christians and others, the sky held many mysteries, and from discerning the movements of planets and stars great events were foretold or forthtold. With that in mid: there’s a new moon due on Friday, 7 December (at 7.20am to be precise) though looking for it the following day will be just as rewarding.

‘A new moon teaches gradualness
and deliberation and how one gives birth
to oneself slowly. Patience with small details
makes perfect a large work, like the universe.’

Rumi

Viewing The New Moon
The new moon will be in the constellation of Sagittarius. Unlike the full moon, which has the face that is directed to us fully lit up, the new moon is dark – and so it’ll probably be the day after when a slight arc of light, a sliver of the moon is visible, when it will look majestic. Then, the moon will look like the letter ‘c’ in the sky.

However, because the moon at this time of the year and in that constellation will be right near the sun, and appearing to travel alongside it for a few days,  any observation will be difficult and will be during daylight hours.

Hawaiian Myth
We can learn a lot from the moon. Sometimes, especially when the new moon hugs the horizon, rather than look like the letter ‘c’ it can appear like the letter ‘u’. This is called a wet moon. It’s when the ‘horns’ of the crescent Moon point up at an angle, away from the horizon, so that the crescent takes on the appearance of a bowl or a smile. A wet moon occurs when the crescent Moon is low above the horizon and at a point more or less directly above the Sun’s (invisible) position below the horizon.

‘I never really thought about how when I look at the moon, it’s the same moon as Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at’. Susan Beth Pfeffer

The terms wet moon originates from Hawaiian mythology, where it was thought that the Moon appeared as a bowl that would fill up with rainwater. The period when, they thought, this was most common, was 20 January 20 to 18 February, and this corresponds with Kaelo the Water Bearer in Hawaiian astrology. Hence the wet moon. Aslo, according to their mythology as summer comes, the crescent shape shifts, pouring out the water and causing the summer rains. After this, and once the bowl is emptied, it then dries out and rights itself, creating the ‘dry moon’. I find that mythology quite charming.

Cheshire Cat
However, this appearance of the moon looking like the letter’ u’ is sometimes called the ‘Cheshire moon’, because it resembles the smile of the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

However, less charming is the myth, that some adhere to, that the new moon summons Manticores to kill you. Manticores are mythical creatures rather like large lions, but with dragon wings and scorpion tails, and the kill, according to myth. The good news is, both moonlight and sunlight are fatal to manticores. Also, like vampires, manticores can’t enter your house unless you invite them in. But, it is just a myth.

‘When hope is fleeting, stop for a moment and visualize, in a sky of silver, the crescent of a lavender moon. Imagine it — delicate, slim, precise, like a paper-thin slice from a cabochon jewel. It may not be very useful, but it is beautiful. And sometimes it is enough’. Vera Nazarian

Other Cultures
But, there’s more about the new moon in other cultures.

The Islamic calendar has retained an observational definition of the new moon, marking the new month when the first crescent moon is actually seen.

And in Asia, new moon is the beginning of the month in the Chinese calendar. Some Buddhist Chinese keep a vegetarian diet based on the new moon and full moon each month.

Also, the new moon signifies the start of every Jewish month, and is considered an important date and minor holiday in the Hebrew calendar. The modern form of the calendar is a rule-based luni-solar calendar, akin to the Chinese calendar, measuring months defined in lunar cycles as well as years measured in solar cycles. Absolutely fascinating.

‘Each “way of thinking” has its own shape and colour, which wax and wane like the moon.’ Haruki Murakami

And, Finally…The Geminids
And, there’s even more. While you’re gazing upwards, it might be good, should you get a clear, dark sky over the next week or so, in the evening to look out for the Geminids meteor shower.  As the night progresses, the Geminids meteor rate will increase, hitting a theoretical maximum of about 100 per hour.

The best way to prepare to watch the meteor shower is: watch late at night with the naked eye. A telescope isn’t needed and will probably ensure you miss most of the display as they move rapidly through the sky.  Get away from city lights if you can. Give yourself a vantage point where you can look at a large expanse of sky – and the best way to do this is by laying down and just looking at the sky.

‘The moon is the friendliest of the celestial bodies, after all, glowing warm and white and welcoming, like a friend who wants only to know that all of us are safe in our narrow worlds, our narrow yards, our narrow, well-considered lives. The moon worries. We may not know how we know that, but we know it all the same: that the moon watches, and the moon worries, and the moon will always love us, no matter what’. Seanan McGuire,

Yes, the new moon does indeed teach us many things, one of the most significant being that it, the sky, the earth and everything (and that includes us) is the handiwork of the loving Source, the Source of All. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God…’ Psalm 9.1a, The Book

 

Star Light, Star Bright: Celtic/Druidic Astronomy For All

I have always been interested in looking up and the night sky, and pondering. Don’t you find it fascinating and both humbling to look up at the vast numbers of stars in the night sky and see a ‘sea’ that goes on (seemingly) for ever? What is out there? Why does it exist? How is it that we can comprehend it (albeit in part)? What is our purpose? From the time of being a wee lad, I’ve looked up and wondered.

‘Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust,’ said Lawrence Krauss.

Look up!

It was a cold 1st December evening, and I was about seven years old (and so this is a recollection of some years ago). My dad had encouraged me, a budding amateur astronomer even at that tender age, by buying me a telescope the Christmas before, and I treasured it.

And, peering out of the window of my grandmother’s cottage on a freezing, cloudless, clear December evening I couldn’t wait to go outdoors and gaze at the night sky once more.

And, once outside, between them, my grandmother and dad, on that night like many others, would point out the constellations, significant stars and the planets, and I was in awe. They knew so much. They shared so much. And, both of them would turn the event into something that was educational, challenging and fun.

‘Look up there, dear Tadhg, what do you see?’, my grandmother said pointing to the north-eastern horizon. I can remember laughing and saying, ‘I can see ten bright stars and they look like the letter ‘H’, like rugby goal posts’. I was always encouraged to use my imagination.

‘Exactly,’ my dad said, ‘but to some people, to the ancient Greeks, that constellation looked like to men fighting. It’s called Gemini which means ‘twins’. And. as I looked they did look like two ‘stick’ men side by side’, fighting.

Ofcourse, others such as ancient Druids used their imagination and saw something slightly different’, my grandmother said.

She went on to explain that when those ancients looked up at those stats they saw Gwyn and Gwyrthur, the sons of Greidawl who seek the hand of the lady in red, Creudyladd. I looked, and they did look like characters that the ancient Celts talked of.

Look up! Be encouraged to look up at the night sky. If you’re in the northern hemisphere then the constellation Gemini (or Gwyn and Gwyrthur) rise above the north-east horizon at dusk, climbing high in the south-eastern sky ay midnight, during this time of the year.

Interesting isn’t it, that regardless of our faith background and ‘tribe’ we are comfortable with Greek myth, from an astronomical point of view when naming constellations, and yet to many, local and ancient myth seem unfamiliar and odd, and perhaps to a minority to be resisted.

‘Now check that one, son’, my dad asked me as he pointed to another constellation. I knew the constellation he was pointing to. It was Orion. ‘Use your imagination’, he said. And I did. I remember laughing and saying it looked like a butterfly, or a bow tie (not that I had many occasions to wear a bow tie on many occasions as a wee lad – but there were one of two weddings where I did), but I knew it was Orion the Hunter. My dad continued, ‘..and to the ancient Celts and Druids that constellation is Herne the Hunter’.

Many years later I was to find out, born to Euryale, a Gorgon, and Poseidon/Neptune, the god of the sea in the Graeco-Roman tradition.

Did you know, that the earliest depiction of the constellation of Orion is prehistoric? On a mammoth ivory carving found in the Ach valley in West Germany there is the outline of the constellation dating back about thirty-five thousand years ago.

‘The heavens declare the glory of God..’ Psalm 19.1a, The Book

Did you know that Herne is, allegedly, a resident spectre and keeper of Windsor Forest in Berkshire, England, whose most notable feature is that he has antlers. It is said he often appears riding on horseback, accompanied by other wild huntsman.

Look up! If you’re interested in seeing the Constellation Orion (or Herne the hunter), at this time of the year, it will rise above the southern horizon at about 8pm (London time) and climb higher in the south-eastern sky as the night passes. You can’t miss that constellation’s brightest star (infact it’s the brightest star in the night sky), Sirius, which is four hundred and sixty-three light years away. So, light leaving there in AD1555 would only now just be reaching your eyes as you look at it.

It was getting even colder, and I think my grandmother and dad were eager to get me indoors and in the warm, but (even then) my interest was piqued and I could be quite persuasive, and I persuaded them to explore just one more constellation.

This time I pointed out a group of stars unknown to me. My dad explained that that constellation was Perseus. He said that he was one of the great heroes of classical mythology, the son of Jupiter and Danae, and was best known for his killing of the Gorgon Medusa. My grandmother explained, ‘Or, to the Welsh, Perseus was really the hero Llew Llaw Gyffes, who was the child of Arianrhod. He was killed but, at the moment of his death, his soul transformed into an eagle, and he still appears in the night sky for all to see’.

It was now freezing cold, and so we all headed back home, to listen to some more stories by my grandmother at the hearth.

Look up! Persus or Llew Llaw Gyffes can be seen in high in the night sky, now, in the east.

My love for the night sky still persists, and I would encourage you to pause and look up at the night sky…and be in awe. There is great wonderment there, myth, ‘magic’ and great understanding. If we only’ stop and stare’, as the late Welsh poet W H Davies penned. ‘Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.’ Sarah Williams.

 

Arianrhod In All Her Splendour: Full Moon Poem

Tonight, 10 May 2017, is the May full moon, in the constellation of Libra. To me and many it is known as the Bright Moon. To celebrate this full moon I wrote the following poem:

Arianrhod in all her splendour, moves by an invisible hand
and wanders companionless, like a silver wheel in the sky. She ascends.
This full moon’s lucid beam dominates the now darkened canopy, and
there, in her smiling face, we find sweet, unbridled understanding.
She befriends.

Her ‘lesser light’ moves across the sky above the city, grey.
Oh, robed in splendour, her surge of silver-light fills every window pane
and skips across rooftops, trees, streams, fairy fires, and silent railway,
and falls unbeknown on those who sleep now, and refreshment regain.
A blessing.

Arianrhod, spill your beauty on a thousand Earthly races,
on happy flowers that bloom in a myriad of hues,
on laughing, smiling, sad and all up-looked faces,
who, in wilding spaces, drink your wine of sweet, bless’d fallen dew.
A gracious infilling.

And paled now is her light,
as onward she moves lower in the sky. For the sun, opportune.
But, for now, dear Arianrhod reigns with love. She is mistress of the night.
A timely witness sent by the Truth who is beyond the Moon.
A glorious remembrance.

 

Note: Photo above is copyrighted, and used with kind permission. Gratitude to Pennie Ley [Link]

 

 

Poem For Good Friday: Oneing

In our mind’s eye
we gaze into the eyes of God
and our souls declare, ‘God lives!’

We see God’s eyes gazing back
and our souls declare, ‘God loves!’

Perception matters.
With eyes of atoms our egos look around and declare God is nowhere.

With eyes of light, imagination, and intuition, we look at
stars, and trees, and plants, and people,
and our souls declare God is now here.

One seeing, one knowing, one love.
Oneing.

As an amateur astronomer, whenever I can, I’m in awe as I gaze upward, using a Meade 12 inch telescope, at the marvels of planets, stars, nebulae and more. The photo, above, taken by NASA, is the Helix Nebula, also known NGC 7293. It is a large planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius. It’s commonly known as the Eye of God. Isn’t it beautiful?