One of the great travesties of modernity was Thomas Edison’s development of the incandescent electric light bulb in 18791, and the subsequent electrification of America. By 1925, half of American homes had electricity. The general electrification and illumination of the American nighttime sky has resulted in levels of light pollution that has largely obscured the night sky from our vision and our minds. From 200,000 years of campfires and simple candle illumination that resulted in most of humanity possessing an intimate familiarity with night sky, in 150 years, we’ve “developed” to the point that most adults have difficulty locating major landmarks in the night sky such as Ursa Major and Minor, Cassiopeia, and the Pleiades. Even many people who live “close to” nature, as farmers, ranchers, and hunting guides, have difficulty with this basic, traditional human life skill. Regardless of the common ignorance of the positions of the stars, their functional practicality in the nighttime sky has not disappeared or even diminished. My introduction to this information available in the night sky came courtesy of my paternal grandfather, when I was in kindergarten. He would lay in the yard with me, looking up at the night sky, and point out the different constellations and major individual stars of importance.2 While it is reasonable to presume that our prehistoric ancestors understood the value of the stars for determining direction, we know—unequivocally—that our historical ancestors, worldwide, understood it. In historical literature such as Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon poem The Wanderer, and even older texts like the Baghvad-Gita, there are references to the “leading star.” The fact that most people today, even among self-professed “outdoorsmen,” cannot quickly and confidently locate and identify the northern pole star is a sad testament to the lack of connection with the natural world. Fortuitously, the ancients paved the way for us so that you need not possess a doctorate in astronomy to utilize the night sky for navigation. The ancient world’s view of the night sky as a celestial sphere remains a simple, effective framework for understanding the night sky, and utilizing it for navigation, even though it is contrary to current scientific understanding of the physical universe. https://www.patreon.com/posts/primi...paign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link Continue reading...
