The Sky Is Important

The Sky Is Important

The sky is important. The sky covers us. It speaks to us. Before the time we found the flame, we would lie back in the dark and look up at all the points of light. Some points would come together to make a picture in the sky. One of us could see the pictures better than the rest. She taught us the star pictures and what names to call them… We would sit around late at night and make up stories about the pictures in the sky: bears, hunterfolk, lions, dogs. Other, stranger things. Could they be the pictures of the powerful beings in the sky, the ones who make the storms when angry? Mostly, the sky does not change. The same sky pictures are there year after year. The Moon grows from nothing to a thin sliver to a round ball, and then back again to nothing. When the Moon changes, the women bleed. Some tribes have rules against sex at certain times in the growing and shrinking of the Moon. Some tribes scratch the days of the Moon or the days that the women bleed on antler bones. Then they can plan ahead and obey their rules. Rules are sacred.

So what are the stars? Such question is as natural as an infant’s smile. (Quotations from Megan Jorgensen). Night Sky by © Elena

The stars are very far away. When we climb a hill or a tree they are no closer. And clouds come between us and the stars: the stars must be behind the clouds. The Moon, as it slowly moves, passes in front of stars. Later you can see that the stars are not harmed. The Moon does not east stars. The stars must be behind the Moon. The flicker. A strange, cold, white faraway light. Many of them. All over the sky. But only at night. I wonder what they are.