Saturday 10 October 2015

As Long as I Can See the Sky, I Know Where I am Going

I grew up in a mountainous valley with some distinctive peaks.

No matter where I went, I always knew where I was in relation to those mountains. Also, I had this innate sense of direction that was pretty reliable in knowing which direction was which. If I was in another valley or another state, I knew which way was north.  (Except for one place in Arizona. For some reason, north and south were flipped in my personal compass and I never knew why.)

As an adult, I moved to a place of no mountains. Yes, there is a scarp to the distant east, but it's well below the tree line to be of any navigable use.  It took me some time to get used to. Even now, I still have issues with my personal compass. There are lots of places in my new land that I can't get a handle on which direction is which. I've always wondered if there was some sort of strange magnetic ley lines that messed with my internal compass, or if I was just bad at navigating without any mountains.

Then I realised, I was looking to the land, not the sky. How odd. After all, ever since I was a child, I have always been a stargazer. Even if it was the land that was messing me up, one thing has always remained constant, no matter where on the planet I was, and that was the sky.

Since then, I haven't gotten lost. Daytime or nighttime, as long as I can see the sky, I know where I am going.

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Her Grace even knows where she is going if it's a dark, cloudy night. She knows she is going to stay put until a navigable point comes along.

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