I'm a lot older, the stars are still there.

When I was a little kid - my first memories - we lived in a little town in western Kansas called Lewis. 500 people or so. Our house was the only one on the block - the only other building was the Methodist church that my father pastored. Behind the house was an empty field that filled the rest of the block.

I remember standing out in that field once, as a strong plains wind was blowing - arms outstretched, leaning into the wind to see how far I could go and have the wind hold me up. I remember lying on the grass, looking up at clouds and thinking that I couldn't quite see the fantastical animals and other objects described in the childrens' books that we read. I also remember dark, star filled skies, with the glow of the Milky Way stretching across.

I grew up with the space program, the man on the moon, and Star Trek. I learned about space (what people thought they knew, at least) and was always awed by the immensity and incomprehensibility of it, but gradually lost the sense of it as relevant to my life.

I moved to Southeast Alaska for 30 years, which was a fantastic place in many ways, but not so great for star gazing. Much of the year it was cloudy. If it was clear in the summer, it was light from before I got up until after I went to bed. If it was clear in the winter, the stars were bright but it was too damned cold to be outside for long, so none of this was conducive to my staying connected to the night sky.

Now I live in a large city, with lots of what some call "light pollution." But I'm up early a couple of mornings a week on a regular basis, and I'm reacquainting myself with the wonders of at least the brightest stars in the sky. This time of year, as I walk from home southward toward downtown, Orion is high in the middle of the sky, and is my anchor point as I begin to learn to recognize the nearby constellations such as Taurus and Gemini.

I found a time and location specific star map at: http://www.analemma.org/clearskyclock.html that I refer to in the morning to get an image in my head of what to look for as I head out.

It is so interesting to be interested in the sky again. I could just walk and ignore it - and I have on many days over the past 10 years. But the amazing is right there, overhead, waiting for me to pay attention to it and ponder all that life has brought me in the years since I first stood and watched the points of light in the night sky.