Aroostook Skies: The return of the light

    As a child, my bedroom became my sanctuary. It stood on the second floor of our suburban home, near the shores of Lake Michigan. I lived those long gone days as a very solitary boy, and I took comfort and delight at simple pleasures: the song of a bird, the fragrance of trees and flowers, the caress of the wind against my cheek, and especially the shafts of light which entered our home. They would pour through long rectangular windows in my bedroom and land upon the rather thinly plied carpeting. I would treasure unending moments alone in that dear room, laying on the floor, like a happy cell, soaking in the light upon my resting membrane.
Light created daily reality; light gave color to my moments and framed the sounds and smells and feelings of boyhood. As a school child, I trusted my teachers and the house of learning where we kids listened and studied and played and socialized. And the light was good and we learned over time to assume it would always clarify the breaths and borders of our lives. And as boyhood merged into young manhood, I became soiled, spoiled, and jaded, assuming light existed to serve my schedule. Ultimately, by full adulthood, light had daily utility but lacked wonder, mystery, and above all, sanctity.
I think today, so many years later, I error in assuming to understand light. No, I am not a theoretical physicist, investigating the wave and particle nature of photons. I am a descriptive astronomer, a public purveyor of community commitment to the cosmos.
Today, I am born to restore everyday folks to a greater recognition of that light, celestially speaking. Our daily solar infusion offers new expressions of personal and collective gratitude and a certain knowing that we human creatures depend upon a certain sol sampling.
I welcome you to consider February as a light look. It stands out, to me, as the month to celebrate the “Return of the Light.” It is the 28- or 29-day wonder window where, in common consensus, we know we truly begin to emerge from winter’s darkest into the hint that yes, indeed, Maine, there is and will be a springtime.
Please seek that light by day or by night. That’s right. Notice how new found light dapples your dark places and restores, even meagerly, a sense of pleasing promise. Let light rekindle your personal candles as warm sanctuaries of mystic memory. Return to the light, star stuff, by night, content with the mythic communion called Orion, Taurus, Gemini, and Leo. Who can remain unmoved by bursting Venus in western skies generously spilling out her best to you? Who can deny the compelling gleam of giant Jupiter shouting greeting and glee and jollity in the high East? Who can forget waxing lunar luminosity as Venus and Mars coyly adorn the treetops?
Still, the issues of light and living in Aroostook County go and grow more deeply and more critically. Late winter takes its toll on all of us. Discouragement and fatigue, mentally and physically, become common place. Tempers can flare and frustrations lead to depression and despair as snow, cold, and wicked winds seem intractable and interminable, mocking our warmer desires and gentler instincts — between husband and wife, teacher and student, employer and employee, man and machine, and within the internal struggle of the secret places.
Now, stop right there. Recall that every day of late February and early March will bring almost three more minutes sunlight into our lives. That adds up, yes? An additional 21 minutes of sunlight per week. And within only three weeks, we will enjoy over one hour more sunlight! Isn’t that good news? And let’s not forget the arrival of March Daylight Savings Time which offers even more evening exposure as our towns and families reclaim the rites of a not-too-distant spring.
Still doubting? Then join us, the Astronomy Cadets of the Maine School of Science and Mathematics and the Francis Malcolm Institute as we again celestially celebrate at Hannaford Supermarket in Caribou between approximately 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26th for our “Planetford Parade” of sidewalk astronomy experience. Space cadets of all ages welcome to dress for success and meet the stars and more, weather permitting, through the eye of “Goliath” our biggest and best telescopic titan tower.
    Larry Berz of Caribou is director of Easton’s Francis Malcolm Planetarium and astronomy instructor at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics.