A surreal feeling: meditating under the full moon on lanai on an island in the middle of the Pacific. I wake up before the sunrise here, same as at home, but here I can sit under a starred sky and meditate to the waves in the distance. The moon is full tonight, this morning, and the Big Dipper is clear in the sky. My dad, reading next to me (he meditated earlier – we’ve turned into quite a mindful family), shows me again how to find the North Star when I’m done counting my breaths. The two stars at the end of the pan of the Big Dipper point to it. The North Star is the end of the handle of the Little Dipper and it empties into the Big Dipper, though the sky’s too bright tonight to see the full constellation.
I learn something new when he tells me you find latitude by measuring the angle the North Star is from the earth, it’s about 20 degrees higher in Wisconsin than it is where we are now. Then I learn about calculating longitude and the challenge the world faced in discovering a reliable method (my Dad’s rereading Longitude by Dava Sobel) and the King’s Ransom offered for anyone who could solve this problem. The answer: an accurate timepiece set to London’s time that they could take out on the boats. At noon at sea – when no one needs a watch because the sun is at it’s highest point – look at London’s time. Every hour is 15 degrees (360 degrees of earth’s rotation divided by the 24 hours in the day). So, math, y’all.
There’s a little magic learning this, before 6 am, talking quietly in the dark about stars and full moons and navigating ships all over the world.
With Love,
Natalie