42 of countless expectant upturned faces. From the Phoenician mariners to the Magi to the runaway slaves, the history of humanity has looked to the stars to find home, hope, and freedom. Polaris, the legendary North Star, is the most famous guiding light in the night sky. He dangles on the tip of the Little Dipper’s handle, part of the larger Ursa Minor constellation. In the black ink of space, the North Star hardly stands out; he is an unassuming distant glow, only the 48th brightest star, just a glimmering degree brighter than the specks of light around him. Unlike his ever-rotating neighbors, Polaris is the only star in the Northern Hemisphere to always appear stationary. No matter what time of the year you look heavenward, the North Star will be right where you last saw him, a celestial sentinel tethered to his post, a faithful guide forever pointing North. This is because of his position in line with Earth’s axis, almost directly above the North Pole. But even Polaris is an imperfect guide: The North Star does not actually align perfectly with the Celestial North Pole; it is seven tenths of a degree off and it is ever so gradually shifting further away. My inner lostness is perpetually craving a source of direction that is consistently true, forever right, and never wrong. I want a North Star that is precisely aligned with the Celestial North Pole. I want a compass that will not only take me to true north without technical adjustments to account for declination, but one that will dictate every step along the way. I despise the feeling of second south-facing side. But this is not universally true; there are a multitude of factors that influence the growth of moss: the slope, the shade cast by other trees, even the species of tree. Some misleading mosses and deceptive look-alikes thrive in the southern sunlight, producing a thick blanket of green fur on the “wrong” side. These factors add a dyslexic component to the seemingly-simple task of reading the moss. Other times, there is no confusion or direction at all–there is simply no substantial vegetation, much less bryophyte-hosting trees. When this world fails to provide reliable direction, we look to something bigger than our planet to light the way. The sun illuminates cardinal directions with its daily east-to-west journey across the sky, faithfully rising and setting, never tiring of following the same well-worn path every day. In the Northern Hemisphere, when the sun is perched directly overhead, it marks the southerly direction. A simple stake in the ground, cleverly dubbed a shadow stick, can serve as a solar compass, casting a shifting shadow that traces an east-west line. This strategy is reliable and effective, that is, until the clouds roll in, obscuring the sun and absorbing any hope of interpreting the shadows. And what happens when night erases the guiding light of the sun? Is all hope of direction lost? When our galaxy falls short of giving us answers, we appeal to a directional anchor in the greater cosmos. The heavenly bodies have been guiding the lost and the searching for millennia; in looking to the celestial map, we join the saga
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