A common trope
that is frequent amongst people around the world is to “look up” in a search
for guidance or direction. Whether that be looking up to another person as a
model of behavior and morality, keeping your head up as a means of hope and
positivity, looking up to the heavens to confer with a higher being during a
time of disorientation, or even to look a topic up through research to gain
more insight about the unknown. However, in more ancient and historic practices
the act of looking up for guidance had more practical applications.
The captivation and fascination that
humans have had through time with the night sky is vivid throughout art,
literature, religion, and science. The stars specifically have been
anthropomorphized into constellations with rich stories that have been carried
on through the ages. The stars have also acted as pillars of direction and
guidance for many cultures and individuals in a variety of applied ways. Some
of these uses include physical navigation such as the orientation of ships
through the night in the wide ocean, points of reference to determine a growing
season and frame our orientation of time and the calendar, or even as markings
of our destiny and individual experiences of life through astrology. In these
ways we look at what is external and distant or “up” from us to explain our own
position in the universe.
Through my research project I hope
to highlight the ways in which humans have used looking up at the stars as
a guide to find meaning in their actions. To do so I will look at aspects of
navigation, time keeping, and astrology as they pertain to how the influenced the individual choices of a person. For example, when someone may decide to harvest their crops in correlation to the constellations visible to them during the season, or what health precautions to take based on the picture of the sky at the time of their birth reflected in their natal chart. I
feel that this topic relates to both my Peace Studies major and Environmental
Studies minor because it looks at sociological traditions which connect the
individual to all aspects of nature, others, and entirety of the universe
through applied practices as opposed to separate. The project is inherently
interdisciplinary because it ties a variety of subjects to a common metaphor,
but I also plan on expressing these ideas about the direction sought from the stars creatively through paintings and
poetry from the perspective of the onlooker for my final product.
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| The ceiling of the Sala dela Mappomondo in Villa Farnese in Caprarola, Italy |
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| Sailor Navigating by the Stars, Eric Westbrook |
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| Stonehenge, www.livescience.com |
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