http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/Final%20August%2023%20Mixdown%20-%20WEB.mp3
IPR: August can bring some of our best views of the Milky Way but this year we have a lot of moonlight to contend with. What do you recommend this week for stargazers?
MARY: There's a lot of poetry and mythology in the moonlight and in former cultures it was believed that new souls came to birth along the moonbeams.
In Ancient Rome there is a lovely set of siblings: Sol, Luna and Aurora. We know these three as Sun, Moon and the Northern Lights.
IPR: So what's their story and how is it connected to the sky this week?
MARY: The Sun's magnetic field is about to "flip" which indicates to astronomers that we are in the middle of the current solar maximum. This can cause an increase in aurora though that's still hard to predict.
In the mythology of it Aurora is the very first daylight and daily she drives her chariot with its winged horses across the sky, scattering rose petals to announce the rising Sun. Both Aurora and her brother Sol got tangled up in the affairs of Venus and Mars. It was believed Aurora had an affair with Mars and, as a result, Venus punished her by causing her to always be in love but never happily.
In the case of Sol he literally "shed light" in Venus' secret affair with Mars to Vulcan and Venus retaliated by causing Sol to fall in love with a mortal. Sol's true love, the ocean nymph, became jealous and wreaked havoc on the situation, causing the girl's death. It seems quite tragic but this is the poetry of the sky, where planets and stars, sun and moon are forever coming together and parting. The ocean nymph was shunned by Sol because of her actions and she wasted away with her arms always outstretched toward Sol as he passed by. Eventually she transformed into the sunflower which always turns its face toward the Sun.
IPR: What about Luna, the Moon?
MARY: Luna falls in love with the young shepherd Endymion asleep in his cave on Mt. Latmos and begs Jupiter to grant him eternal sleep so she may always meet him in the dream-worlds. The Moon is intimately connected with the dream life. And Luna's waxing and waning across our skies is rendered beautifully by John Keats this way:
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever,
Its loveliness increases,
It will never pass into nothingness,
But still will keep a bower quiet for us,
And a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing..."