I could not presume to know. I'm not even sure I've gotten a midterm grade yet!

 

Waitin' for the Galileoscope (how historic!). I've never seen "The 7 Sisters" (Pleiades) with the naked eye. I'm looking forward to seeing it the way Galileo saw it.


Last year, NASA celebrated its 50^th anniversary. Now, UNESCO has declared 2009 to be the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) in celebration of Galileo Galilei's 400^th anniversary of looking to the stars. You know, he's one of my favorite scientists, a fellow Aquarian (also born on February 15^th) who was put on "house arrest" after surviving the Inquisition Tribunal (quite a feat for an Aquarian!). As you might recall, Galileo believed in heliocentrism (the earth revolving around the sun) and, truth be damned, for that idea contrary to Church doctrine, he found himself on trial with the witches.  I believe Copernicus, seeing how heliocentric beliefs could be dangerous, left instructions with his scribe to present his views on the subject post mortem (way to go, Coop!).


 

And how could one not be fascinated by the stars? Whenever I look up at the night sky, I always think about the introduction to one of the episodes of the old TV series "In Search of" hosted by Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy:

"The stars...

that half-remembered road on which we traveled once...

and will return again some day."

As a star-gazer & artist, I'm also a fan of Vincent Van Gogh's "The Starry Night." Serendipitously, I came across an article about Van Gogh in last month's Smithsonian Magazine called "Night Visions" by painter, Paul Trachtman. I also refer to Vince when I teach psychology because he painted Starry, a favorite work to many, while institutionalized at the Saint-Remy asylum. I was not surprised to learn from Trachtman that Vince loved the night, intermixed the worlds of the real & unreal and worked to use color to reflect the varied expressions of darkness. I was surprised, however, to find that Vince had written to a friend about Starry Night as a "failed attempt at abstraction...once again, I let myself go reaching for stars..."

The STARS! That half-remembered road always beckons. So, for anyone is or isn't already geeky, trekkie, artsy or general sci to sci-fi, this is a great year to revisit or start embracing the stars! The opening event of IYA was in France, but there are plenty more. There are monthly discovery guides, events & other fancies listed online (the January Discovery Guide featured the planet Venus). The main International site is: http://www.astronomy2009.org/ and the US hub is: http://astronomy2009.us/.

Ya know, wetnursing is as ancient as woman. I mean, the baby was hungry, she had milk to spare. I don't see the chaos in this. I'm always amazed when women are disgusted by their own life-giving force!

I'm thinking that if Salma had used a bottle, it wouldn't have freaked some people out. I can't help but think of my niece who was breast-feeding one of her infants at a Pow-wow and some people sitting behind her were mumbling and shifting in clear discomfort & disgust (you would have thought my niece was swinging the girls around squirting milk on people or something!). The dance announcer happened to see this and made a public announcement over the PA system stating that my niece's behavior was perfectly natural and that Native Americans have always breastfed their young. It was twisted that he had to do that, but my niece appreciated him setting the odd few straight. WEIRD!

Exactly what it is: blue skied, late winter with long shadows at mid-day and me about to make some healing chai tea (from the sticks & stones; we don't need no stinkin' teabags!) ~

"...from a poet whose pulse fell (drum-drum-drum!)...that was in the beginning;
there was a hum...
...then...

...things changed..."