You might think I am about to set out on a little self-reflection to peer into the very depths of my soul to uncover the essence of who I am. No. I won’t take you down that road. Quite the opposite. In recent months, however, I have discovered something that is, at least for me, quite significant.
I have always been fascinated by ancient navigators’ abilities to use what is effectively a ruler with a protractor stuck to it to its edge to determine their position on the earth using stars as distant anchor points. While I get the the concept, it has largely been through faith rather than scientific understanding. I have not, even to this day, understood clearly how that simple act results in the navigational accuracy required to find their way home from the midst of distant oceans without any other form or feature in sight. For me, the skill has always held a modicum of magic to complete the formula and to satisfy fleeting curiosity that wanes before I can reach any point of truly wanting to “get it.”
Then, one night, not so long ago, while admiring a spectacular full moon, perhaps the Blood Wolf Super Moon (or some such modern popular version of the same), it suddenly occurred to me: The Moon! Now, while I still can’t understand the entire mechanics and use of the sextant, I have discovered the ability to determine my approximate position on the planet with one simple act: looking at the Moon.
In that one moment of understanding I suddenly understood not only where I was, but also the position of the sun, the directional spin of the earth, the direction of pending sunrise, and the directions of the poles. Though at present, without a visible Moon, I would likely remain lost. With it visible, not only do I find myself able to determine my position, but the very nature of a spherical earth in orbit around a sun becomes, not only clear, but obviously so. Cheers Galileo! Yes. Simply look at the moon. Yes. It seems it may really be that simple.
If this is obvious to you, forgive me. To me it was, and is, a revelation, and a significant one. While perhaps it is obvious to everyone, and while perhaps it may not have expanded my actual horizons, it has clearly highlighted them and brought them into more clarity for me. The best part of it, and with apologies to those whose who simply cannot see, I must repeat: the only thing it requires is to look at the Moon.
Here’s how it works.
On any night under skies that permit you to see the Moon, simply look at it to determine the portion that is visible (acknowledgement of which had previously been the extent of my considerations). Then make one further (albeit ridiculously obvious) consideration: what makes it visible? Light, of course. But, from where? The Sun, of course! That portion that is visible is due to sunlight. The invisible portion completes the sphere, but remains hidden in the darkness on the side opposite to the sun. Until that particular night, I had acknowledged the Moon in two dimensions only, from a thin croissant lo the full lunar disk, and back again. Not because I could not perceive it as otherwise. Perhaps simply because I had never given it further thought. What I had never done was to consider WHY I could see it, and WHAT that implied. Enter the Sun (or at least it’s light). The key for me was exactly that. If the visible part of the Moon was due to sunlight, then the sun must be shining upon it. And while apparently it shone from some point not visible to me, it did so from a direction that lit the Moon in that particular way at that particular time. And so, I began to consider a flashlight shining on an orange, and from which direction that light had to be shone in order to replicate the lit part of the Moon as I saw it on any given night.
What happened then was, again for me, a revelation: suddenly, two dimensional considerations became three dimensional. The moon no longer appeared to be a bright flat shape in the sky. Instead, I began to see it as a sphere, lit from the direction that would allow it to be lit as it was, and its position was relative to that of the vantage point I occupied at that moment. Triangulation?
Just like that, I was seeing it all in three dimensions. And since then, I have never been able to see otherwise.
That being a few months ago, fast forward to this morning. For some slightly odd reason I decided to begin my day, in the dark, at 5am. When I stepped outside briefly to check on the kind of day that was approaching, I looked up. There it was. The Moon. It was a perfect bright (and beautiful) crescent, curved to the left. I immediately thought (since I appear now to not be able to escape this tendency), “Where’s the light coming from?” And with that snap, the Moon became an orange with a flashlight pointing at it from somewhere outside of my field of view. That somewhere else had to be far behind and to the left of it, and on the other side of the Earth itself, in order to create the crescent shape I witnessed. In reality, what appeared to be a crescent was simply the visible edge of a full Moon should I have been able to see it from the same position as the obstructed source of the light shining upon it. And so, again, the entire spectacle became three dimensional to accommodate all of that.
And once again, there I was, standing in a system of the Moon, Sun, and my own vantage on Earth.
And then it occurred to me, if I can see that much, what other conclusions might I be able to draw from it.
The first questions that followed involved sunlight itself. If it was creating that particular shape on the Moon, then wouldn’t the same be true of its impact on the Earth? And if the Sun indeed rises in the East, then which direction would the Earth be spinning in relation to me? And if the Earth were spinning in that direction, that spin would be along the North-South axis… so the realizations followed quickly: North would be… THAT way (quickly confirmed by my trusty iPhone compass). And if so, then the tilt of the crescent would be equal to the tilt of the earth, putting the Sun, roughly, about… over THERE! And if that were the case, and if I were standing on the earth, in the dark, at that particular angle, that would place me about, HERE! in relation to the equator and the poles. Expanding and extrapolating in kind, I was able to determine my relative position to the whole system.
And again, there I was, standing in a system, in motion, that included the Moon, the Sun, and my own vantage on Earth.
One simple realization months ago has changed the way I see all of this, and as a consequence it has made me feel part of something much vaster than what my own limited field of view could previously ever accommodate. And who knows, someday, it might actually help me find my way home.
