If nothing else, this election season has caused me to look even more at the sky for answers. Now, I really don’t think I’m going to find them hidden behind some star or nebula or alongside a speeding comet, but the search has been so revealing, that I have, actually, found the very answer that’s been eluding my grasp for so long.
Just like it’s the journey and not the destination that often provides the substance of any foray, so the search for answers in the heavens has provided me with as much therapy as I would have had with the best therapist. If the goal is to better manage whatever life throws at us, the stars—at least for me—are always worth returning to.
This month, stretched out from horizon to horizon are quite a few naked eye sights that can turn any evening into a well-deserved adventure, though the only steps needed are through my back door. As my gaze darts from one object to the next, I can’t help but be transported far away from the divisions and the mistrust and the violence to places where those words and those feelings and those actions have no meaning. And, for just a few moments, I’m able to sidestep the madness to something, well, pristine.
The full moon arrives in the middle of November, so observations must be planned for when it doesn’t bathe the sky with too much light, hiding so much of what the sky has to offer. Of course, the Moon can be a mission unto itself.
Here are some things I’ll be looking for: the goat star Capella; Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the Bull; the Pleiades open star cluster; the Andromeda galaxy; the constellation Cassiopeia; the three stars of the Summer Triangle; the haziness of the Milky Way; and the Big Dipper pointing the way to the North Star, Polaris.
The universe is unfathomably old but from our vantage point it can appear unblemished, free of any of the dings and scratches that can accumulate through life. As ancient as it is, it seems to be new and undiminished. That’s the advantage of just looking with our eyes and not with the help of the incredible machinery of modern astronomy. Under the magnifying glasses of telescopes that can reveal information we could barely imagine a few years ago, we see a great deal of the chaos that has been unfolding for 14 billion years. There is a time to marvel at that view. But, that time, for me, is not now.
Instead, starting in the northeast, I’ll first admire Capella, the alpha star of the constellation Auriga, one of the brightest in the sky. Then, I’ll stare at red Aldebaran and try to trace the outlines of a giant bull. I’ll turn to the Pleiades, taking in the beauty that has drawn others throughout the ages. I’ll try to follow a line from Cassiopeia’s “W” to a faint smudge that I know to be a massive galaxy—Andromeda—with its trillion stars. I’ll spin around as I pinpoint Deneb, Vega and Altair, three stars long used as guideposts for sailors before the age of GPS. I’ll try not to get dizzy as I look straight up at the aptly named Milky Way. And I will peer out over Mt. Wrightson as I use the Big Dipper to spot Polaris and the way north. A free phone app—there are many to choose from—ensures I’ll never lose my way.
With each glance I’ll learn that all of it is much more than an escape. Rather, it’s a reminder to keep trying, for as long as I can and for as long as conditions allow, to not just find, but also to willingly accept what is still possible, even when there is so much turmoil that we have brought upon ourselves.
The answers, I’ve learned, are not to be found in the stars nor in the searching, though I very much enjoy the ride across the heavens. They are in every exclamation that leaves my lips, in every utterance that marks another fleeting internalization of awe. All of the answers, after all, come from within, and tell me who I am and who I want to be. I hope to keep finding them.
Harold Meckler can be contacted at byaakov54@gmail.com