I increasingly feel at home in the universe. I accept the
stories that modern astronomy tells us about the stars – so very much matter
and energy – and the distances and time as well - our universe. And yet what I can
see with my own eyes is familiar. Again and again I look up and I see the
stars. For countless generations, human beings have created a kind of meaning
and understanding out of what appears to be an otherwise random sky.
And so I stepped outside and looked up at the night sky earlier
this summer - and I saw Cygnus the Swan. Even with our light polluted skies and
with my rudimentary astronomical knowledge, I could readily make out five stars
that are part of the constellation Cygnus from my own backyard.
You could visualize part of the constellation Cygnus as a diamond
kite that is tipped onto its side. The paper and the sticks are unseen, of
course, but you can see the points of the kite as points of light - one star in
the middle where the two sticks would cross and four more at the ends of the
sticks. As I looked east over the roof of my house, the star at the point where
you would tie the kite tail was southernmost, nearly over my chimney.
There is a very evident order to our universe. We know that
the stars form galaxies and super clusters that are expanding away from each other
at unfathomable speeds. And yet from our human perspective, the stars over our
heads are always precisely where they should be as the earth turns under our
feet. The pole star hangs due north in the sky and at an angle of 39 degrees
above the horizon from where I usually stand on the earth. Each year as summer
begins, Cygnus will always be rising in the east near midnight, wheeling around
the pole star. And so on the thirtieth of May, 2017, I saw Cygnus the Swan
flying just over my roof. I think that it is something to always be able to
rely on the stars being out there. I have to be looking to see them.
Now it is easier for me to visualize geese than swans. I
have often actually seen geese flying close at hand. From the surface of the Kaw
River they flap their wings hard, scrambling to lift their bodies clear of the surface
of water. They beat their large wings again and again as they climb into the sky
gaining elevation. And then they are overhead, their wings outstretched, body
and neck and head extending forward. The geese fly forward. And one night, I, just
one single human being, standing in my backyard around midnight at the
beginning of another summer, I saw a clear, fleeting image of one of those
geese, playing out in a pattern of stars against a not quite black sky.
I don’t generally see the images associated with the
constellations. Mostly the stars just form some patterns that I have come to
recognize. The patterns have been named by people from the beginning of time. The
big and little dipper look like dippers. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor – the big
and little bear - in the eyes of some ancients. Cassiopeia is an elongated W. The
throne of a queen. In a few more months, I will spot Orion the Hunter rising in
the winter in the southern part of the sky. I look for the three stars of
Orion’s belt. I forget which star in the whole figure of Orion is Rigel and
which is Betelgeuse. I could look it up. Or I could just look up. I have my own
names for some of the patterns I recognize.
But on this night I saw a giant goose flying forward across
the night sky. Just over my roof. Flying in such nearly infinite slow-motion,
with such power and grace that all of time might have just as well have stopped.
It was a giant goose up there just over my roof – flying forward. And then it
was just stars in the night sky again.
For imagination to work you have to have looked carefully
over some time. At the geese flying from the river, for example. At the stars in
the night time. You put all of these patterns into your memory over time and then
one night they might just overlap somewhere in your mind. And you will be amazed,
as I have been, at what you see.
I suggest that you not make either too much or too little of
the imagining and realities that I am talking about here. And you surely don’t
have to take my words for any of this if you don’t want to. But I am here to tell you that you can see all
sorts of amazing things for yourself. And something of what I saw.
Just step outside on a clear summer night.
Look up.
Cygnus flies true.
