7 Sisters

To get away as far as possible the “Bleak Friday” craze, I was hanging out down south at a location that has something in common with Fairbanks, very bad air quality. In fact, stay indoors was the “WARNING” for Fairbanks and North Pole on Thanksgiving Day, but I am sure that stops nobody from the shopping craze. Yes, Santa's Village was under attack, like with the egg plant that ate Chicago - in this case disguised as the PM25 particulate matter ice fog blob. See, in Alaska today it is hard to get away from civilization or pollution, as the “Crazed Ice Road Truckers” and “Off the Grid” pervert faction have taken over, so too really get away from such abuse of the mind, one must go way south - like to California as the near desert is still friendly and those wack-jobs heading to Alaska to be filmed by lunatics can have the cold for what's it worth. Plus, the Native American desert clans will not tolerate outsiders pissing and crapping all over decency, and are not afraid to police outsiders with a force majeure response, plus you can buy gasoline for about $2.25 on the reservations! See, too bad we let the Alaskan Natives give up their rights to the land for pennies on the dollar and thus we have all this trespassing from assholes bent on that 10-minutes claim to fame. Yes, Alaska has changed. Once the “Last Frontier”, now merely the “Lost Frontier”. Entirely different subject though. So I felt at home, with the “Air Quality” when relaxing out amongst the orange blossom special effects courtesy of nature, but missing were the “WARNINGS”. Now down south, it is “Agricultural Pollution” that causes the “Red Flag” alert to be raised. And according to a friend of mine an environmental scientist, when I enlisted his thoughts on the “AG” pollution, he insisted is wasn't that bad. See, this time of year it is mostly pollen, and field dust when the soil is turned over for the upcoming seed planting season. And since there has been very little rain, the earth is a little scorched. In comparison, Fairbanks' “air contamination“ is from burning coal, so give me the bees diet any day! And at night in the desert with the cooler temperatures of November, the pollen drops out of the air and low and behold, the universe finds an entirely different meaning awe inspiring to this human mesmerized. Are all these stars new, like the “Big Bang” still banging away? I never imagined such an explosion of star light, all uninhabited objects and just waiting for earthlings to find a ways and means to discover what the Creator has left in storage on each planet rock star. Here it is. It is there for the taking, but until such time we give up WAR, until such time we stop killing each other, we will not discover “space travel” that can be used for timely transport of humans out and about the cosmos, as we sure have proven we are going nowhere soon aboard a fire-cracker. Yes, it is written in the bible in the fine print, stop killing, stop war, drink wine and we will find the secrets of life. Just what in hell are we waiting for, we afraid? But while star gazing after consuming way too much beer and way too much turkey, I finally witnessed a “Star Cluster”. This is not a rarity when “Air Quality” conditions are good, usually viewed by the naked eye without other instruments often utilized to focus in such extravagant events of nature, the Creator's miracle such events. Wow, it was like someone had air-brushed a section of the sky, appearing like a cloud in the night, serenaded by the “over yonder” light of the harvest moon. It was the star cluster known as the 7-sisters, the Pleiades located in the Taurus constellation. But it is very unusual to see all 7-sisters even on the best of frosty winter nights in the desert, and thus the “Legend of the Lost Pleiad” finds its origins, something dating back to Kepler's days. But there it was, the 7^th sister as bright as the other stars, maybe with an even higher intensity, powerful and yes beautiful. And artists lucky enough to have observed the “Lost Pleiads”, some have tried to paint what it reminds them of, something I was able to see – not as a painting, but nature at its best.

 

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind ~ B.Dylan