Fall Hunter Moon
Looked at Orion on the way up here this morning. He warms my heart like a familiar friend, a friend who comes for the season. I have greeted his return each autumn for 48 years. We first became acquainted during the 11-7 shift at Magnetic Cookware in Muncie, Indiana. I worked there as a security guard. When I see him in the southern sky, I smile.
Hokusai, the great Japanese ukiyo-e printmaker, followed the Northstar sect of Buddhism. In one sense we obviously project our sensibilities on these celestial objects. That’s clear when we look at the different names various cultures have given to the same identifiable stars or constellations.
In another sense, and more important to me, we see the Drinking Gourd, or the Big Dipper, or the Great Bear, or Orion as distant reminders of the changing seasons here on earth and we use them as sailors and caravans in the Rub al Khali, as farmers and hunters have used them, as guides. They are not, therefore, far away from us in the collaborative sense. The vast distances that separate us from these solar engines are irrelevant to their purpose as way finders and markers of seasonal transitions.
No wonder, in a world lit only by fire, that the stars were the work of gods. We might think we know them better now, now that we can identify their chemistry, understand their age and locate them in a 3-D universe, but that’s only a material, physical way of knowing. Important in its way, yes. Perhaps even key to the future of human existence. Still, very different from that night beacon lighting the way to freedom for escaping slaves. And, very different from Orion as my friend and companion for 48 autumns and winters.
In these latter uses the stars are important parts of our life right here on this planet, giving us direction and even emotional sustenance, clueing us to the coming of spring or the dog days of summer or the fall harvest.
As the squat Welshman asked me at St. Winifred’s Holy Well in Holywell, “Do you know any stars?”
photo credit: Orion Head to Toe, by Rogelio Bernal Andreo, creative commons license at Orion
