his path was marked
New life goal; lock it in: Stargazing somewhere in the southern hemisphere.
Walking with L earlier this evening, we rounded a corner, and I was stunned by an eyeful of Scorpius in all its colorful glory. It’s a summer constellation, and given that we can mostly see Cygnus (my favorite, but nominally a summer visitor) year-round, Scorpius is the one that “makes” the season’s night sky for me. Antares, the Cat’s Eyes, the way it snakes around and shimmers in the warm treetop haze, pincers coiled and alert… It’s magnificent in a completely different way than the hard, austere, icy beauty of winter constellations like Orion, Taurus, or Auriga. The summer stars pulse and quiver with life in a way that makes me believe, just for a split second, that I could actually witness them dance a little in their assigned places. I love it.
Still, Scorpius is just about the southernmost constellation I’ve ever seen. Canopus, the Southern Cross, Centaurus, Lupus, etc—it occurred to me that I’ve never traced them with my own eyes. How spectacular would it be to travel to Argentina, or South Africa, or Australia, or New Zealand, just to look at the night sky and see a completely different set of stars? I’m so familiar with what I’m looking at when I glance up after dark here in the northern hemisphere that it would probably feel like I was in a parallel universe. I would love to travel down there someday just to see that.