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Dark Sky Park: Last New Moon of Summer

New Moon

http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/2013-09-06%20Last%20New%20Moon%20of%20Summer.mp3

IPR: Thursday's New Moon marked the last New Moon of the summer season. Does this indicate any particular significance in the evening sky?

MARY: Right now we're seeing the brilliant planet Venus in the west, 45 minutes after sunset, and drawing near to Venus from above and left, the golden planet Saturn. This doesn't happen every year in this season, but this year, it means that the waxing crescent Moon will appear to sweep up and "cup'" these two, first Venus, on Sunday, Sept 8, then Saturn, the following evening. 

One of the tales I like to associate with this gathering of Venus, goddess of love and beauty, Saturn, ole father time, and the young Moon comes from the Anishnaabe people of the Great Lakes. It's called the Star Maiden, and in the tale, the maiden (our Venus), is the youngest daughter of a large family of girls. All of her older siblings have married and they tease her and cajole her into choosing a mate. But when she finally chooses, she doesn't choose a young warrior, rather, she chooses what appears to them to be an old man, bent over with age ~ here's Saturn, ole Father Time.

One evening, you could say it was an evening of the young Moon, the sisters make ready for a great celebration. As they journey to the feasting place, they tease their youngest sister, because her old husband makes their traveling slow. 

Coming to a hollow log in the woods along the path, the old man mutters some sacred words and runs through the log. When he emerges at the other end, he is a young and handsome warrior, but now his lovely wife is old and bent over with age.

IPR: And we can see this story unfolding in the sky?

MARY: What we see is the planets Venus and Saturn coming close to one another, and then 'changing' places, so that in a few weeks Saturn will be closer to the horizon than Venus, and will then disappear in the Sun's glare. 

This tale continues, with the husband, our Saturn, muttering more words to his father, the sky god, so that the whole party ~ sisters, husbands and all ~ are swept up into the sky kingdom (we could imagine that the sky chief uses the Moon as his vessel for scooping them up into his realm). And there they live for a time, only all of the maiden's sisters and their husbands have been transformed into beautiful birds.

This was one of the ways used to describe the changing natural environment, and to understand how the planets change relationship, to one another, and to the Earth and sky. I think that rather than it applying specifically to Venus and Saturn, as I have suggested here, this tale was also used to explain the difference between Venus as evening star, and Venus as morning star. In one capacity, Venus is young and lovely, and in the other, she would be regarded as old with age.

IPR: What becomes of the Star Maiden and her sisters?

MARY: The Star Maiden and her husband eventually have a son, who entreats his grandfather to let him hunt the beautiful birds. They have been living in gilded cages, so the sky chief opens the cages and allows his grandson to hunt them. When he strikes one of them with his bow, a strange thing begins to happen. All of the sisters and their husbands, together with the Star Maiden, her husband and son, they begin to float back toward the Earth, and as they float, they are restored to their human form, only now, they are quite small, like little people, and they land on a sacred island, the island we know as Mackinac, and there it is said, if you are lucky, you can hear them singing and dancing on the cliffs.