Stargazing With Ancient Eyes Dreaming

Modern science has denuded The stars and night sky of all myth and magic. Knowing the facts in awe and wonder are no substitute for stories and legends of ancient cultures To know that most starts are trillions of miles away, Too far to ever visit is daunting and defeating. It is humbling in the extreme, to know that our sun us one of 100 billion, trillion, trillion stars, Out there in the unimaginable expanse of the Universe One grain of sand on an endless beach stretching to infinity and beyond How does knowing this help us? How does learning the facts from science That destroys all myths, legends and stories about the stars and night sky Improve our quality of life, and our enjoyment of stargazing? The answer is to revive the stories and explanations of ancient cultures Who revered and respected the night sky. Learning these stories and legends makes stargazing worthwhile and meaningful. Here is an example from Australian Aboriginal Culture: The sun is a woman, and the moon is a man. The sun woman is a good person. She arises every morning, decorates herself with ocha. Then sets fire to the stringy bark tree. Some of the red ocha drops off and falls on the clouds, Making a beautiful red sky sunrise. The sun woman carries the burning stringy bark tree, Across the sky during the day, giving light and warmth to everyone on earth, In the evening the woman comes down in the west, She removes the red ocha and some falls off on the clouds Creating the red sky at sunset. She extinguishes the fire in her stingy bark tree. Then she travels under the ground at night, Back to her camp in the east, ready for the new day dawning. The moon is a bad man He refuses to hunt and provide food for his clan, He is fat and lazy, and a nasty person His wife and his son get so annoyed with him, That they attack him with their axes, Chopping more and more bits of him, That is why you get the phases of the moon. Crescents and half moons through the month Eventually there is little left, and the moon dies And stays stays dark for three nights, Then he comes back to life, a new moon every month. The bad man moon remains fat, lazy and nasty.