The greening of Aroostook skies: The sun of Taurus

14 years ago

The greening of Aroostook skies:

The sun of Taurus

By Larry Berz

I drive to work these days as in a dream — a green dream.

The Earth and Sky revel in life rhythms as far as the senses permit us. Who can remain unaffected by the affirmation of the life force without and within us? The experience defies understanding and simply requires an environmental baptism. Yellow dandelions fondle the silent cirrus, which leisurely stroll across the brightened sky. Winter ice is just a fading memory of an alien landscape far removed from the green tide.

The most obvious friendly force about us is the Sun itself. Commanding center stage in the highly placed star stage of Taurus the Bull, the solar disk beams happiness in the perfumed and relaxed blueness of May skies. The old rabbis intoned solemnly, “Bless art Thou, Lord our God, who gave us life, sustained us, and enable us to reach this season”.

I ponder. Celebrate the blessing with each step we take throughout this merry month; the grass sings to us. Shout the blessing with each unimpeded breath we claim; the wind whistles and beckons. Come closer to me; the Earth whispers so sweetly to our hearts. I cup my hands around the western sun of Taurus. I surround the frame of white pine and drink from the cup, calm and unhurried.

I seem to sense I’ve spent the last seven months on the surface of another planet — and perhaps I have. Perhaps, with the astronomical eye, we really do live upon two different planets through a northern Maine year. In the fires of the nuclear age and the deadening sink of the death camp, may all humanity take warning and heed. The Bible enjoins, “why does Thou wish to die, o Man?”

A new music must blow through our soul today. The notes of our best composers from Beethoven to Dvorak, perhaps best play the role of human awareness of the unspoken language of Nature.

I’ve often pondered that the month of May, the Sun of Taurus measures our collective reward for enduring the demands of winter life. Now, I see a four-wheelin’ middle aged man reliving his childhood fantasies at 45 mph on Route 1A, his jaw flapping his affectionate reaction to the wind. Would he, could he enrich himself any more if he could enjoy 11.999 months of free wheelin’ in southern California? Or would his joy, stain and jaded, keep him preoccupied with the burden of his recreation. I ponder.

In early May, I spent wee hours, with binoculars in hand, scanning the eastern horizon of Caribou in hope of bagging a prize observation — the rare appearance of a parade of four planets, hung eastward like a string of pearls for the trained eye. I yearned to string the necklace, yet can only by May 13th place two beads, Venus and Jupiter upon the threads. Mercury and Mars remain lost in morning twilight, inaccessible by skill if not by faith. The star points themselves, so subtle, delicate and almost vulnerable dance and ascend just a degree or two above the farm line of cell phone towers.

And now at month’s end, the pearls forsake my magnified eye altogether — like so much of observational astronomy, the Finger writes and then is gone! At least until the next close encounter, Omar Kayyam. I smile. The Psalmist writes, “Why are Thou so downcast, oh my soul?” And the Author answers, “Hope Thou in God” who offers to calm your pleas with the month of May, the Sun of Taurus!

Larry Berz is the astronomy educator and planetarium director of the Francis Malcolm Science Center in Easton.