Under lunar darkness, robins begin their pre-dawn chant, just as the constellation Cepheus moves due south of the North Star; when Delphinus, the Dolphin, passes overhead between Pegasus and Lyra; when the Pleiades show on the eastern horizon; and when Sagittarius follows Scorpio into the far west.
It is an easy step to connect the position of these morning stars with the state of the landscape, with, for example, the greening winter wheat across the nation’s midsection or the ripening of pie cherries throughout the East.
And making such connections might give rise to speculation that this week’s profusion of elderberry flowers or the appearance of Japanese beetles and chiggers all over the country had something to do with the configuration of the sky before dawn. After all, Chaos Theory suggests, among other things, the possibility that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one location might be causally related to a hurricane halfway around the world.
If the forces of Earth might be so connected, why not golden wheat with Cepheus, mulberries with Delphinus, pie cherries with Lyra? Once sensitive dependence is applied to events across the Cosmos, then the mind is free to make connections as it wills. According to physicist Werner Heisenberg, “A path comes into existence only when it is observed.” The paths and the observations of the paths are beyond number, and together they create a kind of Grand Phenology, a linking of everything.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the first week of middle summer. In the meantime, look for the paths and watch them come to existence.
