If Only the Small-Minded Could Comprehend the Vastness of the Universe

As I remain painfully aware of this presidential administration’s manufactured conflicts and outright constitutional corruption taking place in various locales, including the city of Portland, OR, where I have close ties, I’m also mindful of the monumental legal ramifications of the Texas trial regarding desperate Republican gerrymandering taking place in nearby El Paso—because the now openly fascist GOP cannot prevail any other way but to blatantly cheat in their pathetic grasp for unearned and unlimited power.

And I can’t help but think, if these contemptible thugs actually possessed the wherewithal to simply gaze up at the night sky once in a while, perhaps their hubris might give way to humility as they contemplate the vastness and wonder of the universe and how very small, insignificant, and petty they and their cruel machinations are by comparison.

This thought came to me as I stepped outside to gaze at the stars before sunrise yesterday morning (now that I mistakenly thought I no longer had to be concerned about being eaten alive by mosquitoes). One of the things I looked forward to when I moved to New Mexico more than four months ago was being able to see the Milky Way and a multitude of constellations once again—because I for sure couldn’t see them in the vicinity of bright-lights Las Vegas, NV.

How thrilled was I to immediately spot the constellation Orion. From there, I already knew to make a “line” using the three stars in Orion’s belt, following it upward past his bow to view Pleiades, a place featured in my Other Worldly novels, especially in connection to…none other than New Mexico.

As one of the nearest star clusters to Earth and the most obvious in the night sky, Pleiades doesn’t require special equipment to be viewed from October to April, though it is best seen out of the corner of one’s eye, so to speak, in order to detect it is not merely six or seven stars, but is instead an asterism, or pattern of stars, as well as an open star cluster made up of more than 1,000 stars.

Known as the Seven Sisters or Messier 45, Pleiades derives its name from the Greek legend in which the stars represent the daughters of the ocean nymph Pleione. And many different cultures have used the appearance and position of Pleiades as a calendar.

I first note this about Pleiades in my second Other Worldly novel, Feeling Alienated, wherein it’s referred to as a “middle-aged cluster of hot stars” by native New Mexican Oswald Winslow aka Win, whose DNA turns out to be predominantly from there. Win explains to protagonist Rowan Layne how the ancient Puebloan architecture known as Chaco Canyon in New Mexico is literally structured to align with Pleiades.

I now realize I engaged in a literary gaff in Feeling Alienated by having Win point out Pleiades to Rowan in a July night sky in all-too urban Las Vegas. But in book six, Altogether Alien published in 2023, I employed imaginative literary license to create a fabulous, inhabited planet within Pleiades called Akua, unknown to Earth’s astronomers, but known to Win because (spoiler alert) it is apparently where his real father resides.

Rowan journeys to Akua with Win in Altogether Alien, noting there are parts that bear a strong resemblance to New Mexico, specifically the terrain where they traveled from to reach there, none other than Chaco Canyon. Akua even has cheeky roadrunners.

Which makes it all the more poignant that I have finally now viewed Pleiades in the night sky from my yard in New Mexico. It might take me longer to revisit Chaco Canyon in the northern region of the Land of Enchantment, but at least I can gaze at the stars and imagine what it might be like to travel into space like Rowan Layne. I also imagine a great many of us in the US are wishing these days that we could escape to a more enlightened and less inhumane planet.