Spring Stargazing

We went out stargazing tonight. The spring night was warm, the stars brilliant. The Montgomery Hill Observatory, run by the Evergreen Valley College, is practically in our backyard. We walked up the winding road and gave our eyes time to adjust to the darkness.

Then, one by one, the stars began to bloom and we knew right then that there could not have been a better way to spend the night than looking at the universe.

Just above the western horizon, above the faint glow of the city, was a dim Jupiter. About 30 degrees above it was the dazzling Venus, easily the brightest object in the sky. At the zenith was Mars and as you completed the arc at the eastern sky, I was told that the unassuming star there was Saturn. "I will believe it when I see it," I said. The resident astronomer of the college, Dr. Celso Batalha, could only smile.

But first, Venus. Peering through the telescope, I saw a crescent Venus, a first for me. It was just like the moon, only brighter. Unlike the moon, however, crescent Venus is not visible to the naked eye. She was so bright, though, that I thought I could extend my hand to touch and tickle her. Her laughter would no doubt ripple across the sky if I succeeded.

Children were excitedly running around. Young boys and girls looked longingly at the stars, then at each other. I had eyes only for Saturn, though. And when my turn came to see it through the telescope,  I was overwhelmed into uttering two utterly inadequate words: "My goodness!"

The ring was a fat ribbon around a perfectly spherical shape etched against the dark horizon. There was something so delicate about it that for a moment I thought it would come free off its gravitational bondage and float away like a balloon. When I first saw the Saturn several years ago in wintertime through the same telescope, it was in the western sky and its beauty seemed more set, more mature. But this version was brighter, yet more intimate, more fragile. It was so achingly beautiful that I lingered more than my allotted time at the eyepiece until politely nudged by the fellow behind me.

There were other attractions in the crowded sky: Orion and the Big Dipper and so many more stars and constellations whose names I did not know or wanted to know, for fear that some mystery would go away if I knew their names.

So I went around the hill, taking in as much of the beauty of the night sky as I could with unaided eyes, feeling not insignificant at all but part of an ineffable whole whose meaning I could only dimly glimpse. The warm and breezy spring air was filled with the fragrance of freshly-cut grass and the chirping of crickets

Just when I thought it was time to leave, a shooting star fell. I waited for more but none came. Still, what a finale, what a memorable night!

Starry Sky, Life and Death

It's a magnificent sight, the evening sky now. In the West, the irrepressible 'evening star' Venus glows with such luminosity that you want to extend your hand and touch it. Above it is Jupiter, not as bright but compelling nonetheless. Overhead, the moon is swelling as it moves eastward toward the Diablo Range. But the eastern sky belongs to Mars with its twinkling reddish hue. In the north, the two pointers of the Big Dipper are oriented up and you can easily trace their line to locate the Polaris to the left.

Last week, on February 24, the crescent moon was below Venus and just above the western horizon. The next night it had moved between Venus and Jupiter, forming an almost perfect right-angle triangle. (Pythagorean Theorem, anyone?) The next two days brought much-needed rain to the Santa Clara Valley and clouds covered the sky. A night later, the moon had moved past Jupiter near Orion. The pink plum-cherry blossom have been out in profusion along the quiet avenues and appear like snowflakes in reflected light as you look up to drink in the beauty above.

But tonight the moon has gone far past Orion. In two nights or so, the full moon will rise big and yellow-orange above the hills and one will be overwhelmed by the ineffable beauty of the March sky.

What is it about the sky, particularly when it is so star-studded, that compels us to consider other perspectives? What exactly are we after in life? Fame, glory, wealth, happiness? Does it really matter, after we have reached a certain level of satiety, to add more? Is it worth it, this relentless pursuit of more? Does it in any way enhance our insignificance?

A dear aunt passed away a month ago and I just heard that uncle (they were married for 50 years) has died today, in the same hospital, in the same ICU unit. Both of them refused medications and the experiments that doctors wanted to run on them. They were determined to leave this life with dignity and they did, surrounded only by their loved ones. No tubes, no surgeries, no medical intrusions into the sacred. Both accepted death with uncommon grace and I cannot but think that uncle has left to join his beloved. If he could look at the sky last night, the final night of his life, I think he would have known more than ever before in his heart that love transcends all.

The seasons come and go and the earth renews itself with rain and becomes brown again, and the ancient cycle continues. The old move on and their grandchildren grow up. Someone departs, someone arrives. For all our striving and advances, the sum of human joys and sorrows remain more or less constant across centuries. The planets and the stars swim along in their orbits, unhurried and unchanging, reminding us only of those things that matter, if we take the time to see and listen.

Stretching the Earth's Resilience

Day temperatures reached the 70s in San Jose, California, in mid-January. This is supposed to be winter, with the parched land needing copious amount of rain, and although the balmy weather feels wonderful, the third consecutive drought looms for the state. We have had about 50% of the rain normal for this time of the year. (4.06 inches so far; normal is 7.89 inches). Sierra Nevada, the 400-mile-long mountain range made famous by John Muir’s “Range of Light” reverential musings, has a snowpack only 60% deep compared to what it should be. California’s January sunshine may be redolent of paradise but I cannot shake off thoughts of snakes lurking in the garden.

Today it is in the high 60s as I write. City officials are warning of water rationing. The hills and valleys of the San Francisco Bay Area are green but already brown patches are showing. They suggest the sorrow of teenage brides withering under harsh reality without ever blooming. Patches of yellow mustard show up here and there but where have the orange poppies gone?

Is the unusually high January temperatures a sign of global warming? The Midwest is reeling under record snowfall. It’s bitterly cold in the east coast. Rain is incessant in the Pacific Northwest. What can explain this anomaly, this wild fluctuations in weather conditions that get more pronounced every year? Something is happening to our planet. We are probably stretching its resilience to the breaking point.

I wake up about an hour before dawn. Until last year, I used to hear the cooing of a dove in the ash tree in my front yard toward the end of February. That was my sweetest reminder that spring had arrived before vernal equinox in March. But this year I heard the dove on January 29. I began hearing its mournful music regularly every morning thereafter. Spring isn’t silent as Rachel Carson feared it would be, but certainly it arrives early, early, early!

The night sky removes the sadness I feel at the increasingly ephemeral nature of winter and spring. On the same day that the dove began to coo for the first time this season, I saw in the evening a most stirring sight: Venus shining gloriously above a three-day old moon. The following night the two celestial bodies traded their positions. The night after, the moon separated even further from the evening star as it gained weight and steadily climbed the sky. The sight of stars blooming in the garden of the sky all night long is profoundly moving. The anxiety of mortgage payments, unfulfilled dreams, even intimations of a fragile earth, fade away, replaced by a joy that comes from knowing that I am not alone but is woven into the fabric of this vast, mysterious universe.