First, there is the moon, then there are the stars and then there is God.
Herman Hesse may have said that. I like the sentiment. Gazing up into the night sky is one of man’s great pleasures. It seems to me that the moon never loses its beauty no matter how many times I look at it.
The moon and the stars in the night sky are some of the great muses for humankind.
Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” is that wondrous vision of swirling stars and is presently valued at over $100 million.
Herman Hesse was also enraptured by the night sky and the most charming part of his futuristic novel “Magister Ludi” which was set the Swiss Alps was when the novel’s main character Joseph Knecht would gaze up at the stars each night in order to meditate. And the entire first part of “Hawaii” by James Michener was inspired by the way in which Polynesian seafarers traveled the 2,500 miles for Bora Bora to Hawaii by using star navigation.
Filmmakers also find inspiration in the night sky. One of the most magical film sequences in recent memory was the scene in Lalaland where Sebastian played by Ryan Gosling takes Mia played by Emma Stone to the Observatory in Los Angeles where they watch the night sky in the planetarium, rise up and waltz among the stars.
A piece in this newspaper last week mentioned the Cradle of Aviation along Museum Row in Garden City and as I looked over its website I saw that they had a planetarium offering a ‘full-dome experience” which took visitors along a journey through the Long Island night sky along with a guide who would explain the constellations and their mythical stories.
Who could resist? So off I went at 1 p.m. on a Sunday along with a whole bunch of families and kids. Here is what I saw.
You enter this gigantic theater, lean back, strap yourself in and look up at the ceiling. The dome is first filled with red which I was told allows your eyes to adjust to the darkness faster. And then the show began.
The first thing the guide asked was “How many stars in our solar system?” A trick question for sure but nearly every 1st grader there screamed out in unison “one!” You see today kids are really smart.
The show was really was more like an astronomy lesson which covered the usual suspects including the Milky Way, Big Dipper, the naked and beautiful Cassiopeia, Orion with his three jeweled belt, Scorpius the killer and Leo the lion.
All of these constellations were based upon Greek and Roman myths and the stories offered up some charm but I must confess I wanted more. I wanted someone there to explain to me more about the Big Bang that happened some 16 billion years ago and to help me to understand exactly what was going before then.
The guide did mention that it takes 8 minutes for the rays of the sun to reach the earth in an attempt to help us understand the sheer magnitude of space.
In truth, I find any discussion of the cosmos, its size and its meaning to be largely incomprehensible. Short of resorting to a discussion of God, it seems that we are kind of left in the dark when it comes to big questions about the why of the universe.
I recently saw a Youtube by a nuclear physicist from MIT which convinced me that statistically, we are alone in the universe and that we are the only life that exists.
There will be no ET arriving to lift our spirits and give us purpose.
So you see I am not sure how to approach star gazing. I will grant you that Greek mythology has its merits. And so does Joseph Knecht meditating on the night sky.
So does talking about a Polynesian king using the stars to find Hawaii. And certainly watching Ryan Gosling waltz his way into the heart of Emma Stone as they float among the stars is an unmatched romantic moment.
But surely I am not likely to be waltzing with anyone as I float by Cassiopeia and I am not about the built a little boat and set off to Hawaii by using star navigation. And in fact I am really bad at meditation as well.
And where does that leave me?
Well I will say one thing about looking up at the sky. Every sunset I see has recurring beauty. Every time I see the moon I am amazed at the way it looks. Every time I gaze up at the stars I wonder about what I am doing on earth and how I ought to be living. And every sunrise does bring a smile to my face and makes me happy to be alive and well.
I am glad I live in the material natural world that has things like the moon and the sun and the stars. They never bore me. They always seem to surprise me. They always seem to bring me comfort and so I suppose that is quite enough for now.
