The Friendly Stars by Martha Evans Martin- SUMMARY

560.  The Friendly Stars by Martha Evans Martin.  Her purpose is an impressive thought.  “A feeling of awe for the stars is not induced by exciting wonder at the expanse and mystery of the heavens, nor by burdening and oppressing the mind with the vastness that seems beyond all compassing thought, but by showing how the stars like flowers and trees are but parts of the visible beauty of nature which have their share in making “the perfect whole”.  She wants us to see the beauty stars offer on a daily basis without any intimidation.  She gives practical methods for figuring distance.  The distance between the two pointer stars is 5 degrees.  She makes comments such as Arcturus rises in March about the time that hepatica begins to emerge and bloom.  A red star is one which is moving from a gaseous state to a solid.  She says “Deneb’s beauty is no more eclipsed by Vega than the low nodding anemones are eclipsed by the splendor of the magnolias. Orion’s Betelgeuse is the right shoulder, Rigel is the left foot and Bellatrix is opposite shoulder.  All of these are double stars. Pollux and Castor were associated with sailors in antiquity and it appears that during their presence in the sky, these two told sailors it was time to traverse the seas.  The word gemini has given us “by jimminy”.  Parallax was used to measure the distance of stars.  A star is observed from one position of earth’s orbit around the sun and then 180 days later the star is observed again.  The slight change in position which the star shows in relation to other stars is the parallax.  This change in position allows an angle to be measured and the distance determined.  She was fascinated by binaries- Polaris is a triple, Mizar is a quadruple, Castor, Regulus are double stars.  Of all natural objects, stars have individuality.  Each flower is a duplicate of others but there is only one Vega.  I think that the Stoics would find this thought fascinating.  Her thoughts and manner of approach would also appeal to Stoics’ sense of reverence for the universe.  For them science and knowledge lends greater glory to Natura/God.