Do you still twinkle, little stars?

Do you remember the stars?

image from Wikimedia Commons

When was the last time you saw the Milky Way in the night sky? Can you see all the constellations in the sky above your house anymore?

I love seeing the night sky and all the stars and planets. I'm not into astronomy; it's the sheer magnificence and mystery of the night sky that beguiles me.

When I was a dreamy romantically-infused teenager, I used to slip out of our house on summer nights...no, not meet a boyfriend or run off to hang with a gang of other teenagers...to sit atop our picnic table in the back yard and gaze up at the stars. I would pull my long brown hair up off my sticky shoulders and use my hand full of hair to support the back of my head. I was wrapped by a blanket of warm, humid summer air and lulled by the melody of crickets singing in the damp night grass.

I was mesmerized by the stars in the dark sky above…their cool bright twinkling…their sheer numbers. The Milky Way seemed like a tapestry woven of bright diamonds hung across the sky. Yes, I saw a few manmade satellites winking across the sky, but they were from the earth; they didn't hold the same mystique as the stars. The stars were beyond my reach…the universe was beyond my comprehension. As a dreamy teenager, the stars were like my future – out of reach, but bright with possibility. (I was a big fan of the TV series “Star Trek”.)

Fast forward...ummm…quite a few years…to the light pollution which plagues the world now. I can still see stars from the deck of our current house, but I can’t see the Milky Way. Even though we live at the edge of our city limits, the glowing light from the city fills the sky, and the light from the streetlight in front of our house stretches blindingly through the yard to the deck at the back of our house. On warm nights in early August, I still go outside and sit on our deck and scan the sky for meteors from the Perseids meteor shower. I know I am missing all but the brightest meteors because the light from that streetlight is in my face and the sky is awash with light from the city. I am sad; I miss the ethereal beauty of the stars that I remember from night skies past.

An article from CNN’s blog coverage of the action at SXSW in Austin, TX, really hit home with me.
This article was about Ian Cheney the director of the documentary film, "The City Dark," a film shot mostly in the dark of night.

Cheney's documentary poses a simple question: "What do we lose when we lose the night?"

Cheney.....said he grew up in Maine, beneath millions of visible stars. Now that he lives in New York, he can sometimes count the number of stars he sees on two hands.

So what's the problem? The film lays out a few physical concerns, like possible links to cancer and the increasing challenges astronomers have to see "the killer asteroid." The audience cheered when a wayward sea turtle, attracted to the city lights, turned itself around and made it to the ocean. Cheney's film explores humans' spiritual and emotional attachment to darkness, and the natural light from the sky. He argues that darkness is like wilderness, something to be protected, and there are ways to build those protections into cities.

I wish I'd been in Austin to see the film.
I wish I could see the Milky Way again.......