The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

I quickly reached for my camera when I saw these objects in the sky. The picture was taken without a tripod and so they are a little blurred, but it is still just possible to make out the lights. A few seconds later the sky looked completely different and this could lead to suspicions that something unusual was going on, perhaps even stir suspicions of UFOs. The true explanation is very straightforward.

The bright light to the left of the picture is an aircraft turning towards the camera with its landing lights on. The bright light near the top of the picture is Venus. There is a fainter light, barely perceptible amongst the edges of the top part of the cloud and this is Mercury. A few seconds later the aircraft had turned fully and effectively disappeared from view and Mercury had disappeared behind a cloud making the sky appear very…

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Just back from a little research in the New Forest. While I gather my thoughts about all the natural clues to wayfinding that the Forest revealed I just thought I’d let you know about a great website from a different part of our island. Stonesofwonder.com is a very informative guide to the prehistoric sites of stone monuments of Scotland, all arranged with celestial observation or inspiration in mind. There is information about the location of sites like  Ardachearanbeg, Clochkell, Cultoon, Finlaggan, Drumtroddan, Clava, Callanish and Stillaig, to name a few, and details about their relationship with moments like the equinoxes, solstices and lunar standstills. The website is well worth a visit, and much more accesible than the real things at this time of year.

Nothing tickles me more than stumbling across an obscure reference to an arcane relationship between humans and the natural world. The tickling sensation is particularly acute when the reference is historic and it concerns celestial objects.

On New Year’s holiday in Strathconon in the Scottish Highlands I waded merrily into Simon Schama’s, ‘Citizens, A Chronicle of the French Revolution‘. The subject matter was rich enough and when generously layered with Mr Schama’s oppulent language it was a feast worthy of the Christmas period.

Following on shortly from the sentence, ‘The arrival of the Palais-Royal as a quotidian carnival of the appetites drastically altered all that.’, I learnt that the palace forecourt used to be home to cannon that would go off at noon each day when the sun’s rays passed through a carefully aligned lens to ignite the fuse.

I lay awake after reading that, thinking of how one day I must replace…

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Reading the kids their bedtime story is one of the great escapist tactics. Being transported to worlds filled with Power Rangers and Megazords, or preferably something more ‘Winnie-the-Pooh-like’ is a pretty good way of switching off for the day.

Occasionally the tactic backfires. When the stories become deeply mythological it can take me closer to one aspect of my work. Last night the Lion King started to get a bit celestial…

Mufasa looked up at the starry sky and said, “The great kings of the past look down on us from those stars. So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you… and so will I.”